THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
33 
HARDY PRIMROSES. 
{With Coloured Plate of Lady ^Madeline Taylour.) 
HE pretty purple variety of the common primrose here 
figured is the brightest in colour, and best as respects the 
profusion of its flowers, of the whole of this interesting 
family. Hitherto amateurs have paid but little atten- 
tion to the hardy primroses as garden flowers, although 
when a rambler amongst the ‘‘ ferny coombes ” and copses of the 
West of England happens to light on a great field of primroses of all 
colours, which make a sort of gigantic painter’s palette in the wil- 
derness, the discovery surprises, delights, and makes a lasting im- 
pression on the memory. Many such a wdld primrose garden have I 
seen on the red soil in Devonshire, and never on any other soil or in 
anv county the equal of them, although the primrose is a sportive plant 
in all parts of Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. Probably some of 
the most remarkable displays of this kind are those on the spacious 
lawns in the park at Eicton, and I could tell of one who, w'hen 
riding about there in search of beautiful trees, with which, of course, 
the place abounds, came upon a patch of pink and purple primulas 
covering a space equal in extent to the garden in Finsbury Square, 
and instantly dismounted to roll over them, to the astonishment of 
a staid company, and the violation of all the proprieties. Perhaps 
to some of our readers — aye, and perhaps to not a few — the mention 
of purple and pink primroses may suggest that we have got hold of 
something of an imaginative or apocryphal character. If such there 
be, we assure them we are dealing with matters of fact, and might 
say very much, and to the purpose, too, on the variability of the 
primrose, and the important subject it might offer to collectors of 
native varieties and the raisers of hardy novelties. 
The common primrose. Primula vulgaris, is chiefly distinguished 
from other European primulas, such as the cowslip, polyanthus, and 
auricula, by the production of solitary flowers, other nearly-related 
primulas producing their flowers in umbels of many flowers on one 
stalk. The common primrose of agricultural lands is well-known 
by its elegant tuft of deeply-wrinkled leaves and pale creamy-yel- 
low flowers. It is usually met with on shady banks where ferns 
delight to dwell, and makes a conspicuous feature in the lovely herb- 
age of the w'oodside and the skirts of the coppice in the earlj- 
months of the year. In this, which we may designate its normal 
form, it is a valuable garden plant ; and not a few lovers of gardens 
are like Lord Bacon, in that they have taken care to have their 
homely retreats pleasantly besprinkled with “prime-roses, violets, 
anemonies, and early tulippas.” But the primrose in this normal 
form is a wilding ; it is when it appears with double flowers, or 
with single flowers of some remarkably attractive hue, as in the case 
of the primrose here figured, that it acquires distinction as a garden 
plant. Now there are not less than twenty named and very distinct 
varieties of hardy primroses, all of them forms of P. vulcjaris, in 
February, 3 
