COLLECTIONS OF 1914. 
97 
situations in the main Min S'an that 1 dare not yet quite propose 
it as a separate species, or more than a local development on its 
isolated mountain mass. In P. 22, however, the foliage is taller, 
more advanced with the flower, more upstanding, revolute, 
dark, leathery, opaque and stiff, with more powder in its young 
stage, and a clear white line of powder round the under margin 
of the mature leaf such as is very rare indeed on the much 
more explanate, glossy, succulent, bright -green foliage of Primula 
optata. * 
Primula No. 11 (F 133) is P. citrina originally described from much 
smaller specimens than are the rule of its best. This gracious 
and glorious canary-yellow-headed beauty, lush and subtropical- 
looking in thin and powdered foliage, has been figured in the 
Gardeners' Chronicle beyond need of more description. It looks 
as if it had a sturdy constitution, yet in Nature is most rigidly 
restricted to the dry and powdery limy silt on the floors of over- 
hung (and, for preference, sunless) grottos and crevices of the 
limestone cliffs at 9,000-10,000 feet from Thundercrown away up 
all the Border ranges, ascending to 14,000-15,000 in open crevice 
and crannies, where, however, it still markedly prefers the cold and 
overhung aspects, and is anyhow always wizen and compact by 
comparison with its luxuriant development in more comfortable 
cavities lower down. Here, and here only, untouched by sun or 
rain, it grows superb and lax as in the photograph referred to, 
seeding copiously over the fine silty surfaces, cool and powdery, 
of the dusty grotto-beds that are its happiest home, and from 
which it so graciously flaunts its loose citron heads of splendour 
on 5-inch scapes in June. [I believe P. flava to be only a xero- 
morph of P. citrina from the gaunt arid region round the upper 
Hwang-Hor.] 
Primula No. 12 (F 187) is P. conspersa. It was collected first by 
Purdom in 1911, and has been commented on in the Gardeners' 
Chronicle. It is not found at all until you reach the Minchow 
district, and ranges westwards thence into the foothills of the 
Min S'an, not mounting or descending from some 8,500 feet, 
where it occupies precisely the situations beloved by P. farinosa, 
on the damper grassy hillsides and in the small marish folds of 
the fells, and in level damp places beside the mountain-streams ; 
precisely copying P. farinosa too in its whole effect, except that 
the scapes are usually 9-12 inches high, and carry two or three 
superimposed tiers of blossom. In the Tibetan Alps it blooms 
from early July ; it is not absolutely a biennial, for specially 
stout crowns can be found preparing next year's leaf-bud at the 
base of the seedling stems ; but by far the larger majority of 
seeding plants die in the act, and it is as a biennial that P. 
conspersa had better be grown in England, wherever P. farinosa 
* [The seedlings, too, are so absolutely distinct as to remove these two species 
quite definitely from each other (1916).] 
VOL. xlii. H 
