WCP3609

[1]

Broadstone, Dorset.

June 18th.1911

Sir George Watt.¹ Kt

Dear Sir

Many thanks for your paper on Indian Primulas² which I have read with much interest and pleasure, both for the valuable remarks & observations on their systematic relations, and for the excellent account of their localities & mode of growth. You enable me to picture some of the beautiful scenes in the higher Himalayas, where the smaller & more exquisite of the species [2] which ^{grow on} the damp rocks of the higher mountain sides.

Like you I am now endeavouring to make an Alpine & Bog garden, and am especially interested in the Primroses, which I have never been able to grow before for want of a moist subsoil & sufficient shelter & shade. Having last year purchased a small plot of such ^suitable ground adjoining my present garden, and being much attracted by the new Chinese Primulas being ^now so constantly introduced, I determined to try & grow them, as [3] well as other Alpines, and sowed a good many seeds in February last, besides receiving a good many other species from the Director of Kew, from ^Prof Sir I. B. Balfour³ and from some friends in Ireland. I shall be much pleased to exchange Primulas with you, and have young plants to spare of P. cashmiriensis, denticulata v.alba, Cockburnianae, floribunda v. Isabellina, forbesii v. rubra (fine colour), pulverulenta and malachoides. Also of Pimollia rosea, Japonica and Bullayava in small quantities.

Professor Balfour sent me a plant of P. cockburnianae, and recently ^sent another in flower to show [4] what he says is the "true species", as (he says) "their seed got mixed". These ^last have elongate narrow leaves with much dilated midribs and petioles. But all my seedlings (from Thompson & Morgan’s seed) have broadly ovate almost cordate leaves which do not look as if they would become like those of Prof. Balfour’s older plants.

If you have raised this species (P. Cockayana) from seed till it flowered, I will send you one of my seedlings so that you can tell me what species it is likely to be.

Also can you send me a list of any species you can spare in exchange for any of mine, or send fresh seeds of.[.]

Believe me | yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]