PRIMULA CONFERENCE. 



163 



capsule and not so compressed a seed. Bryocarpum cannot, there- 

 fore, include the Omphalogrammas, but these may be regarded as 

 forms a step nearer Primula than Bryocarpum. 



Three of the five species are now in cultivation, but I have no 

 knowledge of the flowering of any one of them as yet. They are 

 apparently slow growers, and show in perhaps a higher degree than 

 other species the generic sensitiveness to water. They are described 

 as plants of the banks of streams, marshes, or moist meadows. At 

 Edinburgh P. vincaeflora, Franch., which we have grown for some 

 five years now without being able to coax it into flower, thrives best 

 when kept well flooded with water under ample drainage conditions. 

 P. Delavayi, Franch., of which our plants are two years old, seems 

 to like the same treatment. These Chinese species were introduced, 

 the former in 1908, the latter in 191 1, by Bees, Ltd., through Forrest. 

 P. Elwesiana, King, from Calcutta seed, we have now in its third year. 



Chinese Species of the Omphalogramma Section. 

 Purple flowers. 

 P. Delavayi, Franch. P. Franchetii, Pax 



P. Engleri, R. Knuth P. vincaeflora, Franch. 



In China there are several pleasing miniature species, of turfy 

 habitats, which resemble one another in their possession of oblong 

 or spathulate incised leaves more or less mealy — either silver or 

 golden — from which ascend, sometimes no more than an inch from 

 the foliage, delicate scapes bearing a single flower or a few-flowered 

 umbel. Pax has distributed the species of which I write in his sections 

 Macrocarpae, Soldanelloides, and Tenellae. They form, how- 

 ever, a natural phylum which has branched, and as I look at the 

 species they fall into three sections : — Bella, Minutissima, Yunnan- 

 ensis. 



Section Bella. 



The species of this section are recognizable amongst all Primulas 

 by their possession of a dense white cushion of hairs blocking the 

 throat of the 'lilac-purple corolla. They are small-growing species, 

 with more or less spathulate incised and toothed leaves, carrying 

 a white meal. As in other sections, there is a Himalaya and a China 

 distribution. At present we know but two species — P. pusilla, Wall., 

 from Sikkim (in cultivation), and P. bella, Franch., from China, which 

 is in cultivation, introduced by Bees, Ltd., in 1908, from seed 

 collected by Forrest. Herbarium material shows that P. bella, 

 Franch., is an aggregate, and of its microforms there is a delightful 

 dwarf, forming cushions covered with large flowers after the fashion 

 of Saxifraga oppositifolia, and it is worthy a distinct name. P. Bona- 

 tiana, Petitm., is a plant which may not be even a definite microform 

 of P. bella, Franch., the absence of meal — its only diagnostic character 



m 2 



