PRIMULA CONFERENCE. 



II 9 



cross between the two. There is, meanwhile, that nomen incertum of 

 Gusmus, P. x admontensis which he quite baselessly ascribes to P. 

 Auricula x Clusiana. This from its description I take to be merely 

 pure intermedia (which I believe to be sterile, as its authorities say). 

 Otherwise the name must be referred to some other Clusiana x 

 minima cross, differing in size (for it sounds to be apparently a jag- 

 leaved Clusiana — in other words, simply a fine intermedia) . Otherwise 

 we might apply its name to this second cross of mine, minima x 

 Clusiana, which carries rarely more than two blooms to a stem, and 

 differs from intermedia, too, in being clearly fertile. Failing, however, 

 of any more authoritative name, and as the plant is too distinct from 

 P. x intermedia to be left under its name, or differentiated with a mere 

 blank, I will here distinguish it for convenience as P. x caesarea, Farrer 

 (from the ridge where it occurs). Neither Clusiana nor minima, it 

 appears in point of fact, has any breeding use for P. Auricula, which 

 covers all the stony places on the Schneeberg but is nothing regarded. 



We now come to the crosses between minima and the Erythrodosum 

 subsection. Minima meets villosa along the granitic Eastern Alps 

 of the Hohe Tauern, as far as the Eisenhut. The resulting cross, 

 P. x flatnitzensis , Gusmus, divides, like P. minima X spectabilis, into 

 two marked extremes, P. X Sturii, nearer to villosa, and P. x truncata to 

 minima {minima < villosa and minima > villosa) . P. villosa is however 

 the one species of the main European Alps upon whose territory I 

 have never yet set foot. Therefore of this hybrid I can say nothing ; 

 nor have I any knowledge from experience at home, P. x flatnitzensis 

 being apparently rare in cultivation. P. minima again, as you will 

 have guessed, just touches pale oenensis (as well as spectabilis) on the 

 pass of the Frate di Breguzzo, where in twenty yards you have under 

 your hand four species, minima, spectabilis, oenensis, and Auricula, with 

 at least five named hybrids — X Facchinii, X Dumoulini, X discolor, 

 X pumila, and X Widmerae. These last are the two branches of the 

 minima x oenensis cross (P. x coronata, Porta), pumila being minima 

 > oenensis, and Widmerae, minima < oenensis. Of this latter I could 

 see no specimens, but P. x pumila, though of rare occurrence, seemed a 

 very charming plant, minutely neat in habit, with round rosy flowers, 

 two to a scape, fiat upon the ground as in minima itself. So much, 

 then, for these. I must mention that in these notes I am not attempt- 

 ing to burden either readers or hearers with close botanical descriptions 

 of these crosses, nor with analyses of cases in which a reverse cross 

 seems likely ; all such information will be found treated at sufficient 

 length in my articles on the subject in the Gardeners' Chronicle for 

 1912. 



Finally, we come to the most important minima cross that I know, 

 after the unrivalled P. x intermedia. It is only on the granitic ranges 

 round the Brenner that P. minima meets that universal granitic alpine 

 P. hirsula, All. (1785) (P. ' viscosa,' Vill. (1787) and of garden catalogues, 

 and many who should know better) which trenches hardly further east 

 than the Gross Glockner (Eschmann) on the territory of P. villosa. 



