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REPORT ON THE 



with purple edge. As we cannot find the flower, we will look 

 for Honour and Glory of a larger kind. Perhaps in the sound- 

 ness of our work, and the sweetness of our tempers, and the 

 earnestness of our hopes, we may be promoting a higher and 

 wider appreciation of the Auricula, in which case honour and 

 glory are secured, and we may safely proceed in the good old 

 way, according to the sacred precept, " Whatsoever thy hand 

 findeth to do, do it with all thy might." 



Let us now ask the question, Whence came the Florists' 

 Auricula ? Charles Darwin, in "Forms of Flowers," page 43, de- 

 rives it from Primula pubescens, which is represented as a hybrid 

 between P. Auricula and P. hirsuta. Herbert, in 11 Horticultural 

 Transactions," vol. iv., page 19, considers P. Auricula, P. helvetica, 

 P. nivalis, and P. viscosa to have been concerned in the parent- 

 age. Indeed, Mr. Herbert considered he had raised a powdered 

 Auricula from P. nivalis, which may be regarded as a white- 

 flowered variety of villosa of Jacquin. As he gives no descrip- 

 tion, it is impossible to say whether his plant would pass for an 

 Auricula if brought up for judgment here to-day ; but he was not 

 the kind of man to make any glaring mistake, and his plant must 

 have differed from nivalis to entitle it to such special mention. 

 Mr. Herbert, at the same reference, suggested that P. Auricula, 

 P. helvetica, P. nivalis, and P. viscosa are but varieties of one 

 and the same species. To the list may be added hirsuta, pubes- 

 cens, minima, and nivea; for in truth we are now trading in 

 names, and we shall have to be careful that we do not mistake 

 shadows for substances. In his " Die Geschicte der Aurikel," 

 Professor Kerner avows his belief that Primula Auricula is not 

 subject to variations, and that it probably did not keep a place 

 in gardens for any length of time beyond the middle of the seven- 

 teenth century. But then he obtains for the making of the 

 garden flower the blood of P. Auricula and P. hirsuta, which he 

 regards as the parents of P. pubescens ; and from this last, a 

 reputed hybrid, he derives both the edged and the Alpine varie- 

 ties. This proposal will not be accepted by many of the raisers 

 of seedlings, whose experiences have rendered them familiar with 

 the peculiarities of both classes. It affords but poor promise of 

 an explanation of the persistency of the yellow colour and the 

 farinose decoration of the show flowers. Nor does it satisfac- 

 torily explain the shaded margin and the persistently naked leaf 



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