United States or Norfolk Island ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The banks were still brown, but they were patched with great beds of rose-pink primula, blue gentian, and yellow dog pansies. And on a perfect carpet of these sat three dark figures! Never in his life was Roy so overjoyed.
The only really delightful things we saw during our doleful excursion were a lovely clump of big, rose-coloured primula, drooping from the clefts of a steep rock, and a pair of large and handsome kingfishers, pursuing their graceful avocations by a roadside pool their white breasts, ruddy flanks, and gleaming blue backs giving a welcome note of colour to the sedate and misty grey of the landscape.
Astragalus alpinus, Phleum alpinum, Hieracium alpinum and others from the northern parts of Norway may be cited as examples. Thus Primula imperialis has been found in the Himalayas, and many other plants of the high mountains of Java, Ceylon and northern India are identical forms. Some species from the Cameroons and from Abyssinia have been found on the mountains of Madagascar.
In the neighbourhood of Torquay, fir-cones are designated oysters, and in Sussex the Arabis is called "snow-on-the-mountain," and "snow-in-summer." A common name for Achillaea ptarmica is sneezewort, and the Petasites vulgaris has been designated "son before the father." The general name for Drosera rotundifolia is sun-dew, and in Gloucestershire the Primula auricula is the tanner's-apron.
The scapes themselves are of varying length, often very short, and seldom long, and their umbels display the involucre of bracts in a manner quite analogous to that of the Primula officinalis and P. elatior.
Lacking in the Primula veris, these scapes must obviously have been lost at the time of the evolution of this form. Proceeding on this line of speculation we at once see that a very adequate opportunity for systematic atavism is offered here.
The sparse and storm-buffeted pines and the rough scrub merged into a tangled mass of undergrowth and forest, where silver firs and deodars rose conspicuous. The little streams that rushed down the hillsides were fringed with maidenhair fern, lighted up here and there with a bunch of pink primula or a tiny cluster of dog violets.
Now, however, up high in every sunny grassy valley, the Gujars may be found camping with their flocks cattle, ponies, buffaloes, and goats, working upwards hard on the track of the receding snow, where the primula and the gentian star the spring turf.
And perhaps the most striking primula is P. Elwesiana, with large solitary deflexed purple flowers. Poppies also are a feature of the Sikkim vegetation. Near the huts the people cultivate a majestic species near Menconopsis simplicifolia, but it grows in dense clusters 2 or 3 feet high.
They have hitherto been employed chiefly in an ointment, which received its name from them; though they are certainly capable of being applied to other purposes: a tincture of them made in rectified spirit, yields upon being isnpissated, a fragrant resin superior to many of those brought from abroad. PRIMULA officinalis. COWSLIP. The Flowers.
Word Of The Day