PRIMULA CONFERENCE. 
41 
Auricula, and hoped that cultivators who grew only one or a few 
species would not treat with contempt some smaller kinds, which, 
perhaps, were not so attractive to them individually. 
In calling upon Mr. J. G. Baker, of Kew, to deliver his 
lecture on " New Primulas," the Chairman happily remarked 
that Mr. Baker was everywhere recognised as the Gardener's 
Botanist, and as such was always most ready to impart the 
information which was so frequently sought from him. 
ON THE BOTANICAL WOEK WHICH HAS BEEN DONE 
IN THE GENUS PEIMULA SINCE THE LAST 
CONFERENCE.* 
By Mr. J. G. Bakek, F.R.S., F.L.S., 
Keeper of the Herbarium of the Royal Gardens, Kew. 
When Bentham and Hooker published the third volume of their 
" Genera Plantarum " in 1876 they estimated the number of 
known species of Primula at 70 to 80. At the present time we 
are acquainted with 150, so that within the last twenty years 
the number of species has been doubled. 
The external characters on which groups have usually been 
founded are taken from the leaves, which in some cases are 
folded towards the inside when young, and sometimes towards 
the back ; the bracts, which in some cases are conspicuously 
gibbous at the base ; the comparative length of the calyx and 
corolla-tube, and the absence or presence of folds at the throat 
of the corolla- tube. In 1886 Van Tieghem and Douliot published 
in the Bulletin of the Botanical Society of France a physiologcal 
classification of the genus, founded upon the structure of the 
stem, two main groups and seven sections ; but as there are 
abundance of external characters to be found, this is not likely 
to be used either for purposes of horticulture or systematic 
botany. 
The last Primula Conference was held in June 1886, and 
since that two separate books have been written which are 
entirely devoted to the genus. In 1888 Dr. Pax, one of the 
most able and industrious members of the new generation of 
* Copies of the Report of the Primula Conference, held at South 
Kensington in 1886, may still be obtained. (See Advertisements.) 
