48 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
I should like, too, to put it to the Conference whether, on 
every ground, the different classes of Primula should not be 
better classified than at present for exhibition and other practical 
purposes. I am not, of course, speaking of mere botanical 
grouping. 
We seem to have at least three groups which should be, I 
think, more or less kept apart. 
First, the greenhouse species, nearly all from Asia, such as 
obconica, sinensis, mollis, erosa, and florihunda, with P. verti- 
cillata, which alone is from Africa. 
Secondly, the large-habited and coarser, harder species, 
invaluable for the open garden, and generally of easy culture, 
but not generally suited for close association with the third 
group. This third group will comprise the smaller and choicer 
high mountain sorts. 
The second and coarser group comprises some noble garden 
plants, such as P. denticulata in its many fine varieties ; P. 
japonica in perhaps as many (a fine plant, by the way, for massing 
under trees). P. capitata in this group is a plant which should 
be again brought to the front for its splendid flowers of the 
richest purple. In addition to the type, which (with me at 
least) blooms in the majority of months in the year, there is a 
superb large- flowered variety, which seemingly only blooms in 
the late autumn. The bog-loving P. sihhimensis, the invaluable 
P. rosea, and the rarely seen P. Stuarti purpurea, and probably 
P. Poissoni from the Yunan, must be included in it. 
Whether the many other choice Primulas which have from 
time to time reached us from Asia should (if my notion of 
grouping for exhibition and for culture were followed) be distri- 
buted among the three classes suggested, or whether perhaps a 
fourth group be not needed to include them, I am not competent 
to judge, for I have had httle experience with their culture. 
They have, I am glad to sec, to be treated of by others. The culture 
of many or most of them seems hitherto to have been but 
little understood, and it would seem cither that tlioy are naturally 
biennials — at least in this climate — or that their culture is 
difficult. Many once imported are no longer to be found. Such 
gems as P. Beidii and ohiusifolia seem nearly lost, and P. petio- 
Laris and amcthyslina wholly so. We have, I fancy, yet to learn 
almost everything about the culture of tliese choicer Asiatic 
