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Primula sinensis, Lindl. (P. chinensis, Hort. P. Mandarina, Hoffmg. P. praenitens, Ker. P. semperflorens, Lois.). Chinese Primrose. Figs. 3176, 3177. Trunk short and woody, but as known in gardens the plant is practically stemless, the ample foliage and the strong short scapes arising directly from the surface of the ground or very near it: whole plant soft-hairy: lvs. rotundate, soft, and usually limp, several-lobed and the lobes unequally incise-dentate, long-petioled: scapes erect, exceeding the lvs., bearing 2-3 superimposed umbels: fls. now of many colors, several to many in an umbel, large and showy, salverform, the segms. obcordate; calyx inflated; corolla-limb about 1 1/4 in. across, spread out, the lobes broad-cordate, emarginate: caps. glabrous. China. Winter bloomer, as grown in greenhouses. B.M. 2564. L.B.C. 10:916, 20:1926. B.R. 539. F.S. 22:2334-7. I.H. 32:551; 35:42. Gn. 51:468 and p. 469. G.C. III. 25:181, 203, 205. Gng. 2:91. A.F. 8:623, 625, 671. F.R. 4:29.—The Chinese primrose is variable under cult. There are double-fld. forms of various shapes and colors and of various degrees of doubling. For pictures of various double and half-double forms, see R.H. 1867:250, 330. F.S. 20:2145. I.H. 31:512; 35:42; 38:126. J.H. III. 44:515. The normal form of this primrose has a somewhat flat-topped fl.-cluster, but there are forms with pyramidal and elongated clusters. Primula sinensis was intro. into England from Chinese gardens in 1820, but it was not until 1879 that the original wild form was known to botanists. For accounts and pictures of this wild primrose as grown in English gardens, see essay by Sutton in Journ. Royal Hort. Soc. 13:99 (1891). G.C. III. 5:117; 8:564; 9:209; 31:270 (reproduced, less than half in Fig. 3179); 11:13 and 31:271 showing the plant after one year of cult. and reduced in Fig. 3178 (figure reproduced in A.G. 13:245). Gn. 49:214. B.M. 7559. G.C. III. 45:148; 55:131. Gn. 62, p. 307. R.H.S. 39:128. Dr. Augustine Henry, who has collected the wild plant at Ichang, in China, writes in Gardeners' Chronicle that "The habitat and mode of growth is remarkedly different from what we find in the cultivated forms. The wild plant grows on the ledges of rocky cliffs of limestone, in spots where there is no soil, and practically no moisture, exposed to the sun, and living amidst the decaying remains of former generations of the plants. These ledges of Primula are often continuous for hundreds of feet, and in December and January, when the flowers appear, present a scene of great beauty. The scent of the leaves is very strong, and can be perceived at once on entering any of the ravines where the ledges occur. The flowers are pinkish, with a yellow ring around the neck of the corolla."
The general improvement of P. sinensis has taken place without hybridity with other species. There are now crested or fringed forms (var. fimbriata, Hort.), and those with a frill or extra corolla projecting from the throat (Fig. 3177). Gt. 43:1402; 45:1432; 46, p. 192. G.Z. 31:217. H.F. II. 2:228. G.C. III. 27:141. J.H. III. 62:31. The lvs. are variable in shape and depth of lobing. Some forms have crisped lvs. (var. filicifôlia, Hort.). G.Z. 12:2. Var. stellata, Hort. (P. stellata, Hort.), Fig. 3180, is a form with handsome star-like long-stemmed fls. in successive whorls or tiers in a long open cluster, in pink, blue, red, and white; now a popular conservatory and florist's form, prized for its taller and freer habit and smaller more numerous fls. Gn. 53, p. 229; 57, p. 52; 59, p. 252 (bench). G. 20:632; 26:88. G.C. III. 45:149. R.B. 36, p. 268. Gt. 64, p. 91. A.F. 17:7; 18:42. F.E. 19:339. A.G. 18:201; 20:384, 385. A.F. 12:605. Gng. 5:167.
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#REDIRECT [[Primula praenitens]]
#REDIRECT [[Primula praenitens]]
