376 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and multiply their shoots so rapidly as entirely to exhaust their 

 growth. The old roots cannot feed the young shoots through 

 the thick rootstock, and the young roots, which each shoot 

 forms below it, cannot get down to the soil. It is generally 

 thought less trouble to renew the plants from seed, except in 

 the case of double or very choice kinds ; but every gardener 

 deals with this class in his own way, so no more need be said 

 of them. 



P. farinosa is a type representing a large class of Primroses 

 to be treated alike. In their native home the winter buds of 

 these often lie loose on the surface of the ground, or are held to 

 their place by the fine grass amongst which they generally 

 grow. Our first impulse in planting these buds is to bury them 

 like bulbs, but if this is done they invariably die. They must 

 be planted on the surface, not more than half in the soil. If we 

 pull off and plant a crown of P. acaulis, burying it some inches, 

 with only the tops of the leaves above the soil, a stem like a 

 compound leaf-stalk rises from the centre, spreading into leaves 

 and making a new crown when it reaches the surface. The 

 rootstock of such Primroses has a power of prolonging itself 

 indefinitely upwards, though, as I noticed before, such prolonga- 

 tion is bad for the plant. But Primroses of the class of P. 

 farinosa have no such power, or it is so limited as to be 

 practically none ; so they must never be buried in planting. 

 The multiplication of P. farinosa, by small buds forming round 

 the base of the leaves, is very rapid. I have known one crown 

 develop from thirty to forty after flowering ; these very soon 

 detach themselves entirely from the parent, but it requires very 

 favourable conditions to enable them to root and establish them- 

 selves, so that practically such Primroses as these become 

 biennial, and have to be renewed by seed. 



In my garden, when May and June are wet, a fungus like 

 wheat smut, called Urocystis primulina, destroys many of the 

 seed-heads. I conclude that this fungus is indigenous, as all 

 my stock of P. farinosa were collected in England ; and though 

 I grow many kinds of Primrose near, I have never seen a trace 

 of smut on any of the others. 



Something must be said about European alpine Primroses, 

 those belonging to groups three and four of Mr. Baker's arrange- 

 ment in the report of the Primula Conference. These are more 



