l6o JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



Chinese Species of the Sikkimensis Section. 

 Purple flowers. Yellow flowers. 



P. secundi flora, Franch. P. microdonta, Petitm. 



(fig. 62) P. orbicularis, Hemsl. 



P. vittaia, Franch. (fig. 63) P. pseudosikkimensis, G. Forrest (fig. 64) 



P. reflexa, Petitm. 

 P. sikkimensis, Hook. fil. (fig. 65) 

 P. tsetzouenensis, Petitm. 



Section Nivalis. 



The Nivalis section contains some of the finest of Primulas. The 

 flower-trusses are invariably large, as are the flowers themselves, and 

 these are commonly more blue than purple. The dark purple calyx, 

 with its long segments lined internally with a mealy coat which shows 

 more or less between them, is characteristic, and then in fruit the 

 cylindric capsule, much grosser than in the Sikkimensis section, 

 projects far out of the calycine tube. The foliage is no less distinctive. 

 It commonly follows the flower in expansion, and the individual 

 leaves, somewhat thick and riband-shaped, are in varying degree 

 coated with silver or golden meal. 



P. nivalis, Pallas, is the type of the section, and is found in every 

 region where Primulas grow, excepting South America. The species 

 extends right across the Asiatic continent from the Alps of the 

 Caucasus, through the high lands of Turkestan, and following the 

 great Asiatic Divide over the Himalaya into the high area of the 

 Tibeto-Chinese frontier, and north-east over the Altai and Trans- 

 baikalia into Kamtschatka ; thence over the bridge of the Kurile 

 Islands and Aleutian Islands into north-west America. 



An area in occupation of such extent invites adaptations, and 

 these are not wanting in the species, and yet in all its many forms there 

 is a specific physiognomy which expresses without question relation- 

 ship. Notwithstanding, P. nivalis, Pallas, whether typical or in any 

 of its forms, is a rare plant in cultivation. Introduced to cultivation 

 in 1790, a decorative plant, the one hundred and twenty years that 

 have elapsed since its coming ought to have seen it established as a 

 garden plant. Why has it failed ? I take it, difficulties of cultivation 

 are responsible. Speaking from experience at Edinburgh, I can say 

 that it is one of those plants that have the unfortunate habit of disap- 

 pearing — rotting off at the collar through damp while the roots remain 

 healthy. It wants to take its water from below and to have the base of 

 the rosette kept dry. This is true of all the species in the section. 



Its typical form does not occur in China, but the species appears in 

 definite microforms which run parallel with the Himalayan ones. 

 P. sinopurpurea, Balf. fil, and P. sinoplantaginea, F. K. Ward, are the 

 Chinese microforms corresponding to P. purpurea, Royle, and P. 

 plantaginea, Watt, of the Himalayas. P. sinopurpurea, Balf. fil., is 

 in cultivation — another of the plants we owe to Bees, Ltd., through 



