It is 3in. to 8in. high, according to the situation in which it is grown. The flowers are light purple, only ½in. across, arranged in neat umbels; the corolla is flat, having a bright yellow centre; leaves small, ovate-oblong, roundly toothed, bald, and powdery beneath; the flower scapes are round and quite white, with a meal-like covering.
In stiff soil and a damp situation this little gem does well, or it will be equally at home in a vegetable soil, such as leaf mould or peat, but there must be no lack of moisture, and it is all the better for being screened from the mid-day sun, as it would be behind a hedge or low wall. So freely does it bloom, that it is not only worth a place in the garden, but repays all the trouble required to establish it in proper quarters, after which it will take care of itself, by producing offsets and seedlings in abundance.
Flowering period, April to June.
Primula Marginata.
Syn. P. Crenata; Margined Primrose; Nat. Ord. Primulaceæ.
A native of Switzerland, so rich in alpine flowers; this is but a small species, yet very distinct and conspicuous (see Fig. 77). As its specific name denotes, its foliage has a bold margin, as if stitched with white silken thread, and the whole plant is thickly covered with a mealy substance. So distinct in these respects is this lovely species that, with, perhaps, one exception, it may easily be identified from all others, P. auricula marginata being the one that most resembles it, that species also being edged and densely covered with farina, but its foliage is larger, not toothed, and its flowers yellow.
Fig. 77. Primula Marginata.
(Two-thirds natural size.)
P. marginata has bright but light violet flowers on very short scapes, seldom more than 3in. high; these and the calyx also are very mealy. The little leaves are of various shapes, and distinctly toothed, being about the size of the bowl of a dessert spoon. They are neatly arranged in tufts on a short footstalk, which becomes surrounded with young growths, all as clear in their markings as the parent plant, so that a well grown specimen of three years or even less becomes a beautiful object, whether it is on rockwork or in a cold frame.