l66 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 



summit by an embossed rosette thickening, from the middle of 

 which the style protrudes. 



Fifteen species come into the section, and they form two colour- 

 groups — a purple- flowered and a yellow-flowered. Their distribution 

 is interesting. One purple-flowered species — P. japonica, A. Gray — 

 is endemic in Japan ; another — P. Miyabeana, Ito et Kawakami — is 

 endemic in Formosa. Two yellow-flowered ones are confined to the 

 Himalayas — P. prolifera, Wall., on the Khasia Hills, and P. Smithana, 

 Craib, in Sikkim. One, also yellow-flowered — P. imperialis, Jungh. — 

 occurs in Java, and is the southernmost Asiatic species of the genus 

 Primula as we know it at present. The rest are limited to China, and 

 the orange or yellow-flowered Chinese species P. Cockburniana, Hemsl., 

 about Tatsienlu, P. serratifolia, Franch., and P. Bulleyana, G. Forrest, 

 on the Mekong-Sal ween Divide, and P. helodoxa, Balf. fil., on the hills 

 about Tengyueh, form a chain connecting the Himalayan with the 

 J a van species. 



Ten of them are in cultivation. They are the plants of every- 

 body — free growers and free flowerers if adequate root -moisture is 

 present. P. imperialis, Jungh., is the only one that is not quite 

 hardy in the north. They lend themselves readily to hybridization, 

 and what has already been obtained from them by crossing forecasts 

 splendid results in the future. 



Of the six purple-flowered Chinese species P. Poissonii, Franch., 

 has been longest in cultivation, introduced in 1890 by the Jardin 

 des Plantes, Paris. Then in 1905 came P. pulverulenta, Duthie 

 and P. Wilsoni, Dunn, from Messrs. Veitch — the outcome of Wilson's 

 collecting. P. Wilsoni, Dunn, sometimes known as P. angustidens, 

 Pax, is a near ally of P. Poissonii, Franch., but has longer and narrower 

 leaves, smaller flowers and more of them. P. Beesiana, G. Forrest, 

 raised by Bees, Ltd., from Forrest's seeds in 1908, is the latest of 

 the purple series to come into our gardens, and it is perhaps the freest 

 grower of the four. The species yet to be secured are P. glycosma, 

 Petitm., a plant scented in all its parts, and P. mallophylla, Balf. fil., 

 not unlike P. japonica, A. Gray, and confused with it in the past. 



P. Cockburniana, Hemsl., we have known longest of the four yellow- 

 flowered Chinese species, and no one of the later comers rivals it in 

 the depth of its orange flower. It is not a long-lived plant. Dis- 

 covered by Pratt, the seed of it was collected by Wilson and plants 

 raised from it by Messrs. Veitch in 1905. The three others are a 

 result of Forrest's collecting. Two of them— P. Bulleyana, G. 

 Forrest, and P. serratifolia, Franch.— came through Bees, Ltd., in 1908. 

 The coloration of the flower of P. serratifolia, Franch., is curious. 

 The petals are pale yellow, with a lemon-tinted blotch in the centre. 

 It is not so free a grower as some of the others. Let me note here 

 that the P. serratifolia described in Pax's Monograph is a chimaera 

 including P. Beesiana, G. Forrest, P. pulverulenta, Duthie, and 

 P. serratifolia, Franch. P. helodoxa, Balf. fil., is the latest of Forrest's 

 species. It was collected in 1912 for Mr. J. C. Williams, and should 



