PKIMULA CONFERENCE. 



225 



Disposed between the green or powdered edge and the white - 

 mealed "paste," it is a solid band along its inner edge ; while 

 on the outer it flashes in lively pencillings, bold and blunt in 

 some varieties, sharp and delicate in others, towards, but not 

 dashing through to the petal edge. It is this lively characteristic 

 of the body colour that entirely takes away any tameness or 

 monotony, hardness or fixity that a series of strict concentric 

 circles might be supposed to have. The body colour should 

 most certainly have a good solid foundation before it begins to 

 feather off, because a few slight pencillings only have a very 

 feeble and scratchy effect, while a bold and rugged style of its 

 outer edge is massive and handsome in the extreme. But by an 

 expressionless ring of black, dreary as a black hatband round a 

 white hat, I would not advocate taming the Auricula down to 

 the miniature similitude of an archery target. Such a picture of 

 utter and unbending primness (for which the botanical equivalent 

 is not Primula), as a series of severe circles, may indeed have 

 been in old time perpetrated in hard diagram ; but this was only 

 as the bare skeleton which Nature in real life shall clothe with 

 all fulness, softness, and grace and vivacity. 



The body colour is the " iris " of the flower's eye, and black 

 is at present the most settled colour. A good black is very safe 

 and true, lasting well upon the flower, a most important point ; 

 and hence it has been a favourite colour, especially with florists 

 in the north, and the more encouraged, pursued, and developed. 

 Indeed other body colours were regarded with marked disfavour 

 by old Lancashire florists, though if other colours had been 

 worked up to the truth and steadfastness of the black, there is 

 nothing but local fancy or prejudice to make them less valuable 

 and less beautiful. Little encouraged in such variety, the 

 Auricula has shown a capability, if only initial yet, of giving 

 both blue and crimson as the ground colour in edged flowers. 

 These will of course require cultivating up to intensity and 

 steadiness, and I submit this as a very interesting new path of 

 improvement. 



One marked difficulty so far has been that of transmitting to 

 any flower, whether self or edged, the all-important feature of a 

 rich gold tube, if that flower has tints of violet or blue. Their 

 tubes are pale or greenish -yellow, always a colour of low vitality 

 and weak endurance. Some seedling blue selfs, however, by 



