124 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Over all the moor and the boulders P. pedemontana sheds a glow of 

 rose-pink tufts in masses of unbroken beauty ; here and there among 

 Loiseleuria and Vaccinium, on the little humped hillocks, spring up 

 the nodding red-purple umbels of P. viscosa, in its lesser cynoglos si folia 

 form. And there, among them, very sparse and rare, it will not be 

 long before the obvious new beauty of P. X Bowlesii challenges your 

 eye, and declares itself irresistibly, from the first glance, as an inter- 

 mediate between the two. Of P. X Bowlesii in culture I can hardly 

 speak as yet ; my cherished specimens live, indeed, and prosper, but 

 have not yet advanced so far as to flower. And I am beginning to 

 wonder whether I have not perhaps under-rated the anti-calcareous 

 fanaticism of P. viscosa; such slow, partial, and impermanent successes 

 does my garden seem to show me (when I am inclined to despondency) 

 from all the crosses that derive from it. 



And now, to end these notes with one or two important hybrids 

 of whose natural habit I cannot yet speak from experience. P. 

 integri folia is a lawn-forming species of the high moors, that ranges 

 from the Pyrenees through Switzerland to the Voraarlberg. At first 

 sight it seems a poor relation (though lovely enough in itself) to the 

 gorgeous Arthritic Primulas, but is very easily known by its glandular, 

 pilose leaves, and forms a sub-section to itself, shared only by the 

 Croatian and Illyrian P. Kitaibeliana. I have already dealt with it, as 

 collaborating with P. viscosa to produce P. X Mureliana and P. x 

 Dinyana. In the Engadine, Voraarlberg, and Pyrenees, however, it also 

 shares the hills with P. hirsuta, and the resulting P. x Heerii, Briigger, 

 is one of the most brilliant plants in the race. It varies, however, indefi- 

 nitely, and my enthusiasm must be understood only of the best, large- 

 flowered, glowing, pink forms, and not by any means of the pale and 

 washy developments that are sometimes seen. Yet another reputed 

 cross of hirsuta needs little comment. In the Val d'Ambra of the Valtel- 

 line, in the territory of P. glaucescens, one lonely specimen was dis- 

 covered (and that only in fruit) of a narrow-bracted,long-calyxed hirsuta, 

 which was accordingly declared to be a hybrid between the two 

 species — the suggestion being negligible and doubtful to the last point. 

 And the last cross that I must deal with has also an Arthritic for its 

 parent. But P. Wulfeniana cannot really compare, I think, with the 

 dominating magnificence of Clusiana and spectabilis (which would dim 

 the best) ; and I have little zeal for P. x Venzoi, Huter (Venzoides, 

 Huter ex Kerner) which results when Wulfeniana in the last stretch of 

 its westerly distribution just manages to infringe upon the ground of 

 P. tyrolensis in the Cadorine Alps of the Southern Dolomites. I have 

 a feeling that this plant may be the P. X Mureliana of gardens and 

 catalogues, a useful, not uncommon, nor very interesting clump- 

 forming small Primula, in which I see not a trace of either viscosa or 

 integrifolia, such as the pedigree suggested (if correct) would involve 

 The plant of gardens, however, is very willing, if not indestructible in 

 growth, which accounts for its frequent occurrence alike in cultivation 

 and in catalogues. P. tyrolensis X Wulfeniana should have little 



