PRIMULA FLORIBUNDA AND P. x KEWENSIS. 263 



PRIMULA FLORIBUNDA AND P. x KEWENSIS. 



[A GREAT deal of interest centres round the beautiful greenhouse 

 Primula, P. X kewensis, especially, perhaps, from a plant-breeder's 

 point of view. It appeared suddenly at Kew in 1900, and was then 

 thought to be a hybrid between P. florihunda and P. verticillata, being 

 much larger in all its parts than the former, and showing marked 

 characters of the latter as well. For many years it proved sterile, but 

 at last the barrier to its fertility, whatever it may have been, was 

 broken down, and now it sets fertile seed abundantly, and has given 

 rise to some seedhng variations, particularly in the direction of meahness. 

 Many attempts have been made to verify the truth of the assumption 

 of its hybrid origin by repeated crossing of the two species concerned, 

 but only two or three times have plants resembling P. x kewensis 

 been obtained, and it is unnecessary to allude here to the peculiar 

 results often following these attempts. We have been, more than once, 

 struck by the remarkable variation in seedHngs of P. florihunda, not 

 only in the depth of colour in the flower, which varies from the pale, 

 almost sulphur tint of the variety Isahellina to a deep golden yellow, 

 but in the habit of the seedlings, their different degrees of mealiness 

 and hairiness, and above all in the size attained by foliage and flowers, 

 approaching sometimes to that of P. X kewensis. Sir George Watt, 

 who has had, perhaps, more experience of this Primula in its native 

 home than any other botanist, kindly gives us the following information 

 regarding it, and his remarks show how desirable is the study of plants 

 from wild sources. — Ed.] 



" Primula florihunda is a very remarkable species. I believe I was 

 the first to observe that in vernation the leaves were conduplicate in 

 that species, a fact that I half suspect will be found far more valuable 

 than the distinction between Primula and Androsace. I am disposed 

 to go further and to think that structural characteristic is more valuable 

 from a classification standpoint than the formation of a woody stem, such 

 as we find in P. Lacei, and which seems to have suggested to Professor 

 LB. Balfour the transference of that species from the position I had 

 assigned to it (Journal R.H.S. vol. xxix. (1904), p. 296, and xxxix. 

 (1913), p. 203), to that of his section Suffruticosa (Primula Conference 

 Report, Journal R.H.S. vol. xxxix. (1913), pp. 150 and 170). It 

 seems to me that in very dry climates; if a Primula were able to live 

 at all, it would tend to become suffruticose, more especially if grown 

 in a soil rich in lime. At all events that is somewhat my 

 experience of the behaviour of P. florihunda. Pardon my dwelling 

 still further on the subject of the vernation. On page 219 of 

 the Primula Conference Report mention is made of the Primulas 

 being referable to two assemblages, those with the margins of the leaves 



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