PRIMULA CONFERENCE. 



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of the European species which inhabit the Alps of mid-Europe. The 

 great Himalayan range in Northern India, and other parts of the 

 world, have also furnished new forms. Upon all these different subjects 

 we are to have papers which I believe will be very attractive to you, 

 and, I hope, a useful addition to the records of the Society. Contem- 

 porarily with the Conference that we held we received a paper prepared 

 for us by Professor Stein of Breslau and one was also prepared by 

 Mr. Dewar, then at Kew, which was extremely valuable to us. 

 What I wish to say now will be extremely brief, because the Royal 

 Horticultural Society has selected certain experts who are to give us 

 the gist of the advance of knowledge which has been acquired in regard 

 to the genus, and it is not for a President to anticipate in any way 

 the work that lies before you. I feel that the selections which have 

 been made by the Royal Horticultural Society have been very wise 

 ones, and I hope we shall all gain by what we hear. Not only that, 

 but it will also stimulate us in bringing more people to care for the 

 subjects we have in view, just as the Conference twenty-seven years 

 ago stimulated the hardy-plant lovers, and especially the lovers of 

 the genus Primula, to further exertions and further discoveries. We 

 are, I am glad to say, to have lantern pictures to illustrate the remarks 

 of the lecturers, and there are also interesting specimens on the table . 

 My first duty is to call upon Dr. MacWatt to read a paper on 



'EUROPEAN PRIMULAS.' 



Dr. MacWatt : The Genus of Plants about which I am to speak for 

 a short time to-day is one of the most beautiful and interesting in the 

 whole vegetable kingdom. There is a quite peculiar fascination about 

 the Primulas, to which I succumbed at a very early stage of my horti- 

 cultural career, and from which I have not to this day been able to 

 shake myself free. In habit, form, colour, and scent, they have a 

 charm all their own, a charm which increases the more they are 

 studied, and which no familiarity can diminish or render stale. And 

 not only are they among the most beautiful of plants, but their beauty 

 lies open and appeals to all sorts and conditions of men. The entire 

 Temperate Zone of the Northern Hemisphere is their domain, and there 

 is no part of it which is not glorified and gladdened by their presence. 



In the spring of the past year I spent an afternoon in a partially 

 wooded glen in my native county, Berwickshire. One of its sides faced 

 the south and glowed with the ruddy gold of the furze, the other — a 

 grassy slope — looked towards the colder north, but scarcely a blade 

 of grass could be seen that day, so thickly did the flowers of our native 

 primroses begem the ground — a pure delight to eye and heart. And 

 though I have not myself been privileged as yet to enjoy the sight, 

 I can well believe from the report of friends, that to see an alpine 

 slope illumined by the purple glow of Primula glutinosa in its full 

 glory is a spectacle of such surpassing beauty that he who has once 



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