1876. ] 
HAEDY PRIMROSES, ETC. 
163 
admit that when that near approach to the ideal is reached, progression becomes 
slower, and improvement, although existent, much more difficult of detection. 
If we take, as an example of what is to be done, that beautiful mauve- 
coloured variety, so long designated Primula altaica^ but which Mr. J. C. Niven 
has definitely recognised to be the old Primula vulgaris grandifiora^ we find that 
it is remarkably early—a most valuable feature—wonderfully floriferous, and 
having a pleasing and attractive hue of colour in the flowers. These features 
alone would satisfy the mass of those who only look at a flower from its poetic 
aspect, but the florist’s art points to a variety of improvements, some of which 
are a more erect and stouter flower-stalk, more substance of petal, rounder and 
evener outline of flower, and a neat thrum-eye, without which none are perfect. 
One of my most valuable breaks was obtained by using this variety as the 
seed-parent, and crossing it with the high-coloured and more perfectly formed 
P. vidgaris auricidcejiora^ the flowers of which are thrum-eyed, and therefore 
form a good pollen-parent. Such a cross has naturally given a variety of hues, 
but none of exactly the same pretty mauve as the parent flowers ; and therefore, 
my next cross will be to use flowers of a lilac-hued seedling, having a thrum-eye, 
as pollen-parents, with the P. vulgaris grandijlora as seed-parent, and I thus hope 
to obtain eventually an improved form, that shall meet the needed requirements, 
and yet retain the same lovely hue. 
• I find divergences of opinion to exist as to the best time to sow Primrose 
seed, but experience proves to me that the early spring is the best, and productive 
of the most satisfactory results.. If seed be sown as soon as ripe, the vegetation 
is most varied, and as a rule, the seed that will produce the coarsest and most 
robust kinds will germinate first, wliilst the seed that will produce the most 
refined flow'ers will probably remain dormant for several weeks, perhaps all through 
the wdnter; the result follows that the strongest seedlings and the worst are 
saved, and the non-germinated seed is thrown awa}^ On the other hand, the 
keeping of the seed over the autumn and winter would appear to produce in it 
an evenness of maturity that is seen when sown either in a cool house or in a 
gentle heat early in the spring. Not a seedling plant then but will grow strong 
enough to carry a fine head of bloom the next spring, and the result is invariably 
more satisfactory than in the other case. Spring-raised seedling Primroses do 
well if pinched out into shallow pans or boxes, and allowed to remain all the 
summer in the shade, and within easy reach of the water-pot; here the 
foliage will continue green and vigorous, and the following spring they will produce 
large crowns of flowers. 
It is important, as bearing on the summer cultivation of Primroses, to know 
that their blooming-period is much determined by the growth they make the 
previous summer, as each plant produces two distinct heads of flower—that is, 
one from the autumn crown and one from the spring crown—and just .as the 
plant has been kept during the hot season green and vigorous, or otherwise, so, 
will the autumn crown produce an early head of fine flowers, or the reverse. The 
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