Primula vulgaris ‘Plena Rubra’

Horticultural & Botanical History

Sacheverell Sitwell, in 1939, provided a detailed review of old double primroses, reproduced here at length.  ‘One thing appears to be clearly established.  There are four types of double primrose that have come to England from abroad.  These are Madame Pompadour, known once as Crimson Velvet, an excessively difficult flower of a glaring ruby red colour.  There has been much discussion as to the reason for its name.  One writer to a gardening paper instances the case of the 56th Regiment of Foot, who were named ‘The Pompadours’, from the fact that when the Regiment was raised, in 1756, the facings were of a crimson or puce colour, called, at that time, Pompadour.  This is to suggest, that this flower is at least pre-French Revolution in origin.

A. de Moulin is a purplish Double Primrose, supposed to be of of French, or Belgian, origin; but its history is confused because of its being found frequently in Ireland, where the family of Lord Ventry have the surname of de Moleyns.  Probably this coincidence has no connection with the flower; but A. de Moulin is, at least, a century old.  The third type is Marie Crousse, purple edged with white, and not, in the writer’s opinion, of outstanding interest.  The fourth is Rose du Barri, a beautiful rose colour, not of strong constitution, and probably of early Victorian origin.

We come, now, to the Cocker Bon Accord Primroses, raised by Cocker between about 1880 and 1900, in Aberdeenshire, and called after the motto of the City of Aberdeen.  There are fourteen or fifteen varieties of these, some of which are beginning to be [by 1939] extremely scarce; but efforts are being made in several quarters to restore them to cultivation.  In any case, though beautiful in themselves, the Bon Accord Primroses are not old enough in origin to interest us in our present context.  They are, it may be noted, of Polyanthus type; that is to say, they are liable to produce trusses of flowers instead of single flowers, and may produce both forms at the same flowering.

It is, perhaps, safe upon general lines to state that all the rest of the Double Primroses have claims to be considered as Irish in origin, or flourish there, at least, more than anywhere else; although, in parts of Scotland that approximate to Irish conditions of climate, they grow nearly as well.  The future of the Double Primrose depends, indeed, upon diligent search in old Irish and in Scottish gardens.  There are, by now, a good many persons engaged upon this pursuit.  At the moment, it is the Scottish gardens that may have the most to yield, since Ireland in the last ten years has been extensively combed for Double Primroses and Polyanthuses.  Before the War [WWI] they grew in Ireland in great profusion.  One Primrose grower writes that, before 1914, old plants could be bought by the dozen and in limitless quantity.  There are persons who remember, in their youth, seeing whole quarter-acre plantings of the rarer forms, many of which are now extinct and unobtainable.

And now we will embark upon an attempted catalogue of most, if not all, of the varieties of Old Double Primrose.  A rare, but not unobtainable flower is old Irish Red, of which the best strain comes traditionally from County Tyrone; Crimson King is another old flower, well described in its name and, apparently, of Scottish origin, known formerly as Old Scottish Red; Red Paddy, a more rosy red with a white edge, often confused with Sanguinea plena; and Crimson Paddy, which has a thin, or wire edge of white.  Our Pat is a not very interesting sapphire purple.  In fact, all of the Primroses so far named are a little plebeian in appearance.  Old French Grey, or Dingy, is indicated in its description; while Old Salmon is, also, disappointing.  A much more interesting plant is Harlequin Red, which I believe I have managed to secure true to type.  It is a red splashed with white; not only is it a ‘collectors’ piece’, it is as well very beautiful and strange as a flower.  Burgundy is a variety that the writer has never yet come across.  It has earned warm praise, but it is said to be similar to Purple Paddy.  Rosea plena is a pretty thing.  Old Blush and Old White are, to the writer at any rate, undistinguished, and not worthy of a place in the collection. […] The number of Old Double Primroses has never been great.  Parkinson, to whom all knowledge of these flowers must return, was more interested, by far, in the stranger forms, or even freak forms, of Primrose and Cowslip.  The number of Doubles known at the present day cannot exceed twenty-five, of which fifteen are Cocker’s Bon Accord.  Robinson names no more than half a dozen varieties.  In the eigteenth century the number was fewer still.  Philip Miller, in his 1732 edition, gives three Double Primroses, two yellows (and yellow Primroses can never be the most interesting) and a red.  And now we come back to Parkinson, because of his Double Green Primrose.  For this is the great rarity of the Double Primrose world.  Its discovery would be equivalent to the finding of some lost masterpiece by El Greco, to the restricted world who are interested in that subject.’  [Sitwell p.50].

History at Camden Park

Listed only in the 1850 and 1857 catalogues [H.199/1850].

Notes