OBSERVATIONS ON INDIAN PRIMULAS. 



205 



Bashahr the flowers of P. denticulata are regularly eaten in salad, 

 and the powder of the roots is held to be of value in killing leeches ; 

 Professor Balfour informs me that in its many forms (alba, rosea, 

 purpurea, cashmeriana, maxima, &c.) it is luxuriant and sows itself 

 freely in Edinburgh. 



Space will not permit me to discuss the extensive assemblage 

 of minute species that fall into this position. The earliest known, 

 and I believe the only one hitherto successfully grown in Europe, 

 is P. minutissima. This is a North-West form, being found from 

 Kashmir to Garhwal and Kumaon. I first made acquaintance with 

 it while struggling with the final ascent of the Sauch pass at 15,000 

 feet. Snow lay on the ground here and there, filling all the lower 

 undulations, but on the exposed surfaces I was delighted to find our 

 little friend sparkling alongside of an equally minute yellow-flowered 

 Ranunculaceous plant. This gave me the opportunity of resting on 

 the steepest parts of the ascent without having to admit to my stalwart 

 coolies that I needed repeated rests. The whole plant does not exceed 

 an inch in height, but its beautiful purple-blue flowers with yellow 

 throats (occasionally completely white) are fully half an inch in length. 

 Occasionally they are solitary, more often two or three are placed 

 on the extremity of an extremely short peduncle, the flowers being 

 sessile within the involucre of bracts. Sometimes it is seen to throw 

 out runners, but usually two or three of the tiny little plants form 

 a small cluster. P. Heydei is a slightly larger species with coarsely 

 pinnately serrate leaves and creeping stems, with long ascending 

 scapes that bear small heads of beautiful blue flowers ; Duthie found 

 it in Baltistan. In many herbaria this species has been confused 

 with P. minutissima, but the universal presence of the scape should 

 obviate such an error. 



These, then, are the types of the North- West Himalayan capitate 

 species, but there is an Eastern group that must now be mentioned. 

 The best-known example doubtless is P. capitata. This is closely 

 allied to P. denticulata, but is easily recognized and preserves its 

 distinctive features when cultivated. The scape (which appears 

 with the fully formed leaves, not before, as in P. denticulata) rises to 

 a height of a foot or more and bears a head of dark blue narrow bell- 

 shaped flowers, the outermost whorls of which are pendent. It 

 occurs in Sikkim at altitudes of 12-15,000 feet and in situations very 

 similar to those chosen by P. denticulata, only usually a couple of 

 thousand feet higher. Professor Balfour informs me that it flowers 

 and seeds well in the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens. Duthie collected 

 (in W. Nepal, at an altitude of 11-12,000 feet) what I take to be 

 either a new species or an Alpine state of P. capitata. This seems 

 a delightful little plant, at present too imperfectly known to allow 

 of more than the affirmation that it is certainly not P. pusilla, to which 

 species it has been referred. 



P. erosa is also an Eastern form that is even less deserving of an 

 independent position than capitata. It has large, thin, sharply toothed 



