308 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ April 22, 1886. 
IMPROVEMENT OF THE GENUS PRIMULA. 
[A paper by tbe Rev. Francis D. Horner, LowSalds, Burton-in-Lonsdale, read at the 
Primula Conference, April 21st.] 
I only take up this question at the direct request of my brother florist, 
Mr. Samuel Barlow, of Stakehill. The subject could not have been in 
better hands than his, nor associated with a name more known and honoured 
among florists. There is, however, this one thing to temper my regret, that 
I must take his place, and to add value to my paper, that the question I am 
to introduce is a very old and interesting one between Mr. Barlow and 
mys-lf. Through all the years of our intimate friendship have we stood 
together over the Auricula in bloom, and taken careful thought as to the 
yet richer development of this highly cultured flower, a favourite with us 
both from boyhood. 
Mr. Shirley Hibherd in his introductory paper, historical and descriptive, 
will have given some definite idea of what the florist’s Auricula is ; so that 
I shall not here be using technical terms altogether strange to those not 
conversant with the properties of the flower, some of which had not been 
acquired in the dawn of its culture some 300 years ago, nor are even dimly 
visible in the simplicity of its supposed wild ancestry. If any of the points 
for improvement should seem minute—perhaps fanciful—I can only say 
that the highest qualities have, as a rule, been gained only by such gentle 
gradients and slight curves as these. It is often some delicate touch, small 
in itself, but great in its effect, that raises a flower at once above the 
inferior or. commonplace. To the accustomed eye the Auricula has an 
intense individuality, and very slight variations of feature alter an expression 
and enhance or detract from a type of beauty. 
In a breadth of its brilliant bloom there is the effect as of many eyes 
turned steadfastly upon their admirers ; and there are faces in the flowery 
crowd on which one may read many expressions of a life and character 
super-floral. Like as in a bed of Pansies there are many comical casts of 
countenance, expressive of astonishment, anxious inquiry, perplexity, and 
brown study ; so here, in an exhibition of the Auricula, as representative of 
its beauty as can possibly be made, the flowers look all gentleness, candour, 
honesty, simplicity, and refinement. 
Glaring faults that impart a low and evil look are all absent here; and 
hence I am not able to submit to you how impudent and barefaced is the 
“pin-eyed” flower, wherein the stigma, protruding from the hollow throat, 
is like a tongue thrust out. Neither, how loose and vacantia the expression 
of the inordinately large tube; and how cunning and cold that of one too 
small.. Nor how lack of breadth in the eye or “paste” of the flower is like 
that in other eyes which cannot look you in the face; and how narrow 
ground colours betoken indecision and want of thoroughness. “Edges” 
have their own expressions, too; something like meanness when too narrow, 
and akin to bounce in over-breadth; for excess of edge is often concurrent 
with excess of size, and coarseness, almost inseparable from immensity in 
the Auricula, is one of its gravest faults. 
Had it been practicable, a representative collection of failures in desired 
qualities would have formed a very clear illustration of mistakes. Yet I 
would not say it would be convincing; for invariably the uninitiated friend 
who comes to tell you which of all you have he likes the best, settles his 
admiration upon something that has set at naught all proper principles, 
and he does violence to your feelings by approving of it. But the greatest 
ordeal of praise I ever had was the remark, transparently innocent, of an 
Oid country parishioner, “ They almost come up to artificials, sir ! ” 
The question in what direction efforts should be made for improving the 
florists’ flowers of the genus Primula resolves itself, descriptively, into the 
statement of the shortcomings more or less prominent and obstinate; 
prospectively, into what the possibilities are of which hopeful shadows in 
faint shape are cast before ; and practically, in what system of experiments 
we should seek to overcome the faults, and win into reality the promise of 
fresh beauties that a flower, inexhaustible in its powers of variation, natu¬ 
rally affords us. 
As an experimentalist I will adhere to the practical: use bare descrip¬ 
tion as little as I may, and bring young hopes downstairs from the nursery 
realms of imaginaiion as considerately as I can. 
PROPERTIES. 
Form. —-The first property to be worked for in the Auricula is, I submit, 
the perfection of that form upon which the colour-attributes of the flower 
will be the most effectively displayed. Colour can always be worked up to, 
and the florist may tarry patiently for this until he has the form of grace 
whereon to call it into play. I always choose as the maternal parent of 
Auricula seed the best flowers I have in breadth, circularit} 7 , flatness, sub¬ 
stance, and smoothness of petal; while for male parentage I do not depart 
further than must be from form. Petals cannot be too broad, so long as 
they will expand equally and kindly. If they do not meet through narrow¬ 
ness or roughness the beautiful design of the colour zones is interrupted by 
vacant spaces signifying nothing. 
The edged classes and the seifs have each their own type of error in 
respect of form. In the “edges” it is generally a pointedness of petal; in 
the seifs a central notch or heart-shaped depression. In the edged flowers 
the fault has long been noticed and regretted, and has now been brilliantly 
overcome, especially from the appearing of Lancashire’s Lancashire Hero in 
lblu onwards ; but among the seifs until recent times there was hardly an 
exception to the rule of notch. The indented petal of the self seemed 
silently allowed to pass as the typical petal of the class. 
Selfs. —For improvement of the self Auricula, my experience convinces 
me that the best results are to be obtained through entirely self parentage. 
1 would not say that a correct self flower has never come from edged 
parents, for Mr. Campbell believed that his brown self Piza>ro, the best 
flower in the class at the time, was raised from a green-edged parent, and 
Mr. Simonite that a good blue self of his was obtained from a white-edged 
seedling. ° 
Certainly, however, my own best seifs have sprung from purely self 
parents, and latterly from a self descent comparatively ancestral. Selfs 
have generally a shorter duration of bloom than the edged flowers, which 
possess greater stoutness of petal, and in which the green, whether pure or 
mealed, is a colour of greater and more leaf-like vitality. 
It might be theoretical to suppose that if seifs were crossed with these a 
greater substance of petal wou’d be transmitted. In practice, however, it is 
found that all seed from purely edged parents produces a majority of self 
varieties, and vast numbers of ib- se are notched, and frilled, and flimsy 
flowers. I have never had wilder flights of seedling seifs than from that 
grand grey-edge, George Lightbody. It would almost seem that an “ edge ” 
did not know what a good self ought to be. 
I think that for seifs we should work patiently among themselves, ad¬ 
vancing in substance as we certainly are by sure if slow degrees, and not 
weakening the newly acquired and most supreme point of the “ rose-leaved ’ 
or perfectly rounded petal. 
Another point to aim at in the development of the self is the addition of 
some that would be constitutionally later in blooming than most of those we 
have. Campbell’s Duke of Argyll (rich crimson, but deeply notched) might 
transmit this habit, and be or. rruled in this fault. 
The Auricula bloom in a collection loses much of its power and beauty 
when the quiet yet emphatic seifs are gone. It is like the beginning of the 
end, as when in the fading summer the swallows take their flight. 
Edged Flowers .—With reference to improvement in form in the green, 
grey, and white edges, I would remark that in the^e, good form, beyond its 
intrinsic value, has an influence inductive of other good properties. 
Rounded petals are associated with roundness of the white-mealed circle 
termed the “paste;” while with the pointed petal the paste is often, as by a 
kind of sympathy, drawn into corresponding irregularities; which only in¬ 
tensify the serious fault of an angular appearance. 
For form’s sake, naturally, such flowers as have the roundest, broadest 
petals will be selected ; and such a variety as George Lightbody, among 
those well known and distributed at present, will serve as a type. 
If good form in both parents should justify it, my conclusions are that 
edged flowers should be crossed with their class fellows ; for one line of 
improvement in the Auricula certainly lies in doing all we can to intensify 
and magnify the class distinctions, gaining green edges as deeply green as 
possible, and white edges as densely mealed. The “ undecided edge,” too 
green for grey, and too grey for a pure green, is not desirable. Still the 
Auricula is so very sportive that some decisive edges will be obtained from 
parents dissimilar in class ; and the experiment is justified, of course, if 
there be no alternative, and if some marked improvement in form may be 
hoped for from it. 
Petals .—Connected with form, in addition to the roundness and level 
disposition of the petals, may be mentioned their number. This is variable, 
even in different flowers on the same plant. Five is probably the normal 
number, for beyond this the Auricula will take a playful liberty with the 
proprieties of its Linnaean order, Pentandria, always producing just as many 
stamens as there maybe petals; and if one be of inordinate breadth it is 
accounted as two, and decorated accordingly with two stamens. This may 
b6 a botanical misdemeanour, but is not an offence under florist bye laws. 
The same is noticeable also in the florist Tulip, which is required to have 
petals neither less nor more than six, but is occasionally misformed with 
four or five, and seven or eight, when there is always one attendant anther 
for each. In the Auricula five or six petals are sufficient for a broad round 
flower, and more than eight begin to look narrow and laboured. 
Colour .—When we turn from improvement in form to views of improve¬ 
ment in colours, both in richness and variety, a very wide field of develop¬ 
ment lies before the florist. Possibilities peep out but half concealed or only 
in the rough, revealing themselves in the rarer combinations of colours that 
a few seedlings crudely show ; and these beckonings need but to be followed 
to obtain in time some new and beautiful combinations. 
The Auricula is a most richly endowed flower, possessing already, singly 
or combined, all colours of the rainbow—violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, 
orange, and red; and further still and rarer, that negation of all colours, 
black. In edges we do not look for a gift of other than the green, grey, and 
white, now so well known and fixed, while the colours of the paste and tube 
are constant and common to all. There remains but one more colour 
zone upon the flower, to give variety and play, and that is the ring or 
belt of velvety surface known as the “ground” or “body” colour. 
Disposed between the green or powdered edge and the white mealed 
“paste,” it is a solid band along its inner edge; while on the outer it 
flashes in lively pencillings, bold, and blunt in some varieties, sharp and 
delicate in others, towards, but not dashing through to the petal edge. It 
is this lively characteristic of the body colour that entirely takes away any 
tameness or monotony, hardness or fixity that a series of strict concentric 
circles might be supposed to have. The body colour should most certainly 
have a good solid foundation before it begins to feather off, because a few 
slight pencillings only have a very feeble and scratchy effect, while a bold 
and rugged style of its outer edge is massive and handsome in the extreme. 
But by an expressionless ring of blaok, dreary as a black hatband round 
a white hat, I would not advocate taming the Auricula down to the miniature 
similitude of an archery target. Such a picture of utter and unbending 
primness (for which the botanical equivalent is not Primula), as a series 
of severe circles may indeed have been in old time perpetrated in hard 
diagram; but this was only as the bare skeleton which Nature in real life 
shall clothe with all fulness, softness, and grace and vivacity. 
The body colour Is the “ iris ” cf the flower’s eye, and black is at present 
the most settled colour. A good black is very safe and true, lasting well 
upon the flower, a most important point; and hence it has been a favourite 
colour, especially with florists in the north, and the more encouraged, 
pursued, and developed. Indeed other body colours were regarded with 
marked disfavour by old Lancashire florists, though if other colours had been 
worked up to the truth and steadfastness of the black, there is nothing but 
local fancy or prejudice to make them less valuable and less beautiful. 
Little encouraged in such variety, the Auricula has shown a capability, 
if only initial yet, of giving both blue and crimson as the ground colour in 
edged flowers. These will of course require cultivating up to intensity and 
steadiness, and I submit this as a very interesting new path of improve¬ 
ment. 
One marked difficulty so far has been that of t r ansmitting to any 
flower, whether self or edged, the all-important feature of a rich gold 
tube, if that flower has tints of violet or blue. Their tubes are pale or 
greenish-yellow, always a colour of low vitality and weak endurance. 
Some seedling blue seifs, however, by pollen from gold-tubed varieties, are 
better in this respect than the old blues. 
