204 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



bright sapphire-blue in colour, and have narrow funnel-shaped tubes. 

 The head of flowers is surrounded by a many-seriated involucre of 

 bracts, the outermost more or less gibbous at the base, but not spurred. 



They frequent gritty soils on grassy hillsides, or, in the case of the 

 smaller species, moss-clad surfaces of rocks and overhanging banks, 

 and thus appear like veritable sapphires set in green. But they 

 grow singly, or, if clustered, rarely more than two or three are found 

 in the clumps, one plant large and the others small. They seem to 

 be annual or biennial, when met with on land that during winter 

 is covered with snow. When seen in woods they choose open glades 

 and are associated with species of Anemone, Delphinium, and 

 Ranunculus, &c, and are then perennial. The N.W. Himalayan 

 examples are P. denticulata, P. farinosa, P. Heydei, and P. minutissima 

 — the last-mentioned has heads of one to three sessile flowers, while 

 P. Heydei produces creeping stolons and very distinct scapes. The 

 East-Himalayan forms are P. capitata, P. erosa, P. bellidifolia, P- 

 glabra, P. pusilla (fig. 98), P. sapphirina, and P. muscoides, the last 

 being possibly the smallest Primrose in the world. 



The most abundant species is doubtless P. denticulata. At 

 altitudes of from 7,000 to 13,000 feet this is often extremely abundant. 

 Within its lower altitudes, say 7,000 to 9,000 feet, I have seen miles 

 of country, from March to May or June, literally rendered blue with 

 its lovely heads of flowers. In its higher altitudes, from 10,000 to 

 12,000 feet, it may be got in flower as late as August. In spring 

 the flowers appear before the leaves, but are braced up by their 

 large rufous-coloured scales, and a few young erect leaves. But 

 though I have looked many and many a time, I never once came 

 across either an umbellate or a single -flowered example, nor could 

 I discover an instance where the leaves showed the slightest tendency 

 to become petiolate. It is not uncommon, amid a mass of plants 

 rising to as much as a foot in height, to find dwarf states — perfect in 

 every detail and in full flower, the whole plant not exceeding 1 J inch 

 in height. P. denticulata in fact, except in stature, varies remarkably 

 little. In its lower altitudes the flowers are smaller and borne on 

 short stalks and are usually more numerous. In its alpine conditions 

 it has larger and fewer flowers, and the whole plant becomes stunted. 

 The flowers are often also deeper coloured, or there is an albino 

 condition in which the petals become almost white and the annulus 

 around its mouth orange instead of lemon-yellow. In Sikkim I 

 observed that the calyx had longer teeth than seen in the Simla 

 form, and that the mouth of the corolla was also greenish-yellow. 

 I am satisfied other botanists will confirm me in these observations, 

 hence I think we are justified in putting faith in the characters 

 mentioned as being closely associated with the life of at least this 

 particular species. But when I add that all the species of my section 

 Denticulata manifest a remarkable constancy, then I think the 

 further conviction may be accepted — namely, that they form a natural 

 and useful assemblage. The word " useful " reminds me that in 



