JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



bracts that are spurred tit the base (fig. 71, d) — tho spurred Primulas they 

 might be called. Tho flowers appear before the leaves, and the scape and 

 pedicels usually elongate to double their longth with tho ripening of the 

 fruit (v). Then» is no more natural or more easily recognised group than 

 this. The flowers are fairly large and brightly coloured, — a peculiarity 

 well exemplified in /'. rosea itself (fig. 71, a). The corolla tube is long, 

 narrow, gradually expanding near the throat ; and the mouth, though 

 usually of a paler colour than the limbs, is not furnished with an annulus. 



hut I must hasten to observe that /'. conciniia and /'. tibrfica 

 (especially the former), though placed by me in this group, should probably 

 be transferred to a section by themselves and possibly along with P. 

 tend hi. 1 leave them here as a provisional matter. Their removal would 

 \ery nearly make the section be confined to the Western Himalaya and 

 Western Tibet. /'. tibetica has the characteristic spurred bracts of the 

 series, but the bracts in /'. conoinna, Like those in /'. hazarica, are 

 thickened below, but not, 1 believe, spurred. With an Indian dis- 

 tribution so strikingly Western, one would naturally look for Central 

 Vsiatic if not Kuropean species. And in this we are not disappointed, for 

 there are several, and one, P. egaliksensis, occurs in Greenland. /\ longi- 

 jlora takes its name from its very long straight corolla tube —a character 

 upon which 1 have laid some stress in defining the section. But of all the 

 members of this series /'. sibirica, Jaoq. (fig. 71, B), with its more robust 

 Mast-Himalayan form, /\ involucrata, may be said to occur on all the Alpine 

 Himalaya from West Tibet to Kashmir and Sikkim, and is distributed 

 through North and Central Asia to Europe, North and Arctic America. 

 It. in fact, has nearly as wide a distribution as P. fari/iosa, and indeed 

 these two plants would appear to have been often confused the one with 

 the other, though tin* capitate condition of the one and the umbellate 

 form of t ho other should have instantly rendered such ambiguity im- 

 possible even had the spurred bract of sibirica been overlooked. 



All the more characteristic members of this series frequent damp 

 situations and grow singly, though often in more or less compact patches : 

 that is to say, a few yards may be literally covered with a particular 

 speeies. though ordinarily they do not form aggregated clumps. Professor 

 Palfour informs me that this species (/\ sibirica) has many varieties, tall 

 and short, dark and light, large -flowered and small-llowered, and that all 

 are easily grown in Edinburgh, and that it flowers and sows itself freely. 

 /\ sibirica is invariably met with as a solitary plant, and seems to manifest 

 the elongation of the scape with the growth of the associated vegetation 

 to a remarkable extent, the mature plant becoming a single scape (> to 8 

 inches in height, and a rosette of withered leaves lying on the ground. In 

 Kdinburgh inrol ticrata has proved a good hardy species, and flowers 

 and seeds freely in the open. 



Most of the species of spurred Primulas frequent sandy and gritty 

 deposits, such as the tongues of soft soil that accompany the rivulets 

 draining from ice. 1 can think of nothing more surprisingly beautiful 

 than a bed of rosea brought suddenly to view through a cleft in the 

 terminal tongue of ice. Its rich delicate rose-purple sparkles against the 

 background of ice, in a way that defies the jeweller's art or the beauty of 

 the most expensive gems. 



