154 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



than in other species. P. nutantiftora, Hemsl., is P. Fargesii, Franch. 

 The pedicels in these species are very slender, and the number of 

 flowers reduced sometimes to one. More robust species are P. ame- 

 thystina, Franch., and P. brevifolia, G. Forrest, the purple-blue flowers 

 in the truss being sometimes six. The section has representation in 

 the Himalayas in P. Kingii, Watt, which Indian collectors describe 

 as a wonderful plant with claret-coloured bell-flowers. A future 

 study of the forms included here will probably result in the separation 

 of the delicate P. Fargesii, Franch., and P. silaensis, Petitm., from 

 the others. 



Chinese Species of the Amethystina Section. 

 Purple-blue flowers. 

 P. amethystina, Franch. P. Fargesii, Franch. 

 P. brevifolia, G. Forrest P. silaensis, Petitm. 



Taking the section Muscarioides as a starting-point, the chain of 

 forms leading through Soldanelloides to Amethystina is not the 

 only one that we can trace. By it we arrive at forms with pendulous 

 flowers on long flexible pedicels. Following another route on which 

 also pedicellate development takes place but the pedicels become 

 strict, we pass through the section Sphaerocephala and reach section 

 Denticulata, with its extension Farinosa. 



Section Sphaerocephala. 



I wish I could have used the name Capitata here, because of its 

 suggesting that the well-known P. capitata, Hook., belongs to the 

 section, as it does. Pax has, however, used the name for one of his 

 sections embracing in addition to P. capitata, Hook., species that find 

 their right place in Muscarioides and in Denticulata. 



The flowers in this section are aggregated in a capitular truss 

 at the end of the scape, and they have the shape of and droop like those 

 in the section Muscarioides and show the same apical crown as the 

 flowers successively expand from below upwards. But the flowers 

 have short stalks, and this makes all the difference to their form, because 

 downward curvature takes place in the pedicel, not in the flower itself. 

 The irregularity observable in the flowers of the species of the Mus- 

 carioid section is here almost absent. The calyx is only slightly 

 oblique. 



The section illustrates once more the relationship betwixt the 

 Himalayan and the Chinese forms of Primula. P. capitata, Hook., 

 of the Himalayas is represented in China by P. sphaerocephala, Balf. 

 fil. The physiognomic resemblance between the two species is decep- 

 tive, and the Chinese plant has been supposed to be P. capitata, Hook., 

 which, as Craib suggests, is probably an aggregate species. 

 Both species are in cultivation — P. capitata, Hook., since 1850, when 

 it flowered at Kew, the plant being raised from seed sent from India 

 by Sir Joseph Hooker, and side by side their likeness and diff erence 



