6/14/2023 0 Comments Garden auricula![]() The show auriculas are often grown in pots and need a little more attention if you are to succeed in producing top quality flowers.įor tips on growing Auriculas see the sections on Auriculas and Show Auriculas. All have a distinct circle of white paste or farina at the centre of the flower. Show auriculas are split into 5 distinct types : self, fancy, green edged, grey edged and white edged. Grow them in pots or in the ground, but make sure they have good drainage in winter and protection from slugs. These are intended for the garden and are fully hardy. Garden Auriculas include alpine, border, doubles and striped. They are broadly split into two categories : Garden and Show. To find out a bit more about the fascinating history of the Auricula take a look at our Auricula History pages. Their jewel-like colours were much loved by the 18th and 19th century florists and are now being rediscovered by young and old alike. They have smooth fleshy leaves often covered with powder, to protect them from the intense solar radiation of the high mountains. AuriculasĪuriculas are the alpine cousins of our wild primroses. They will do well in the garden as long as you ensure that their natural conditions are replicated as much as possible. Most of them originate from the mountainous regions of Europe and are very hardy plants. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 146: 1-26.Alpine primula come in many different shapes and forms. Auricula (Primulaceae) based on two molecular data sets (ITS, AFLPs), morphology and geographical distribution. However, the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus was rather less appreciative: 'these men cultivate a science peculiar to themselves, the mysteries of which are known only to the adepts nor can such knowledge be worth the attention of the botanist wherefore let no sound botanist ever enter into their societies'.īaker G and Ward P 1995. Some botanists admired how the Florists had transformed the wild ancestors of the auricula into garden flowers: 'in its wild state it attracts no notice from its beauty, Art accomplishes all the rest'. Hundreds of varieties were developed, as the rich (or more likely their gardeners) and the working classes bred these plants and took advantage of two mutations that appeared a clear green colour and a mealy central ring to the flower. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries growing auriculas became an obsession with some, as Florists' Societies started to take an interest. ![]() In the herbarium of Jacob Bobart the Elder, the dried plant collection of the first Keeper of the Botanic Garden, there are about a dozen named varieties of auricula preserved. In 1665, John Rea stated 'Bears Ears are nobler kinds of Cowslips, and now much esteemed, in respect of the many excellent varieties thereof of late years discovered, differing in the size, fashion, and colour of the green leaves, as well as flower'. Garden auriculas ( Primula x pubescens) are the products of hybridisation between Primula auricula and Primula hirsuta, a Pyrenean and Alpine species, and generations of artificial selection by dedicated gardeners. By 1658, the Garden boasted nine bear's ears which ranged in colour from tawny through yellow and scarlet to purple and violet. In 1648, Oxford Botanic Garden was growing a purple bear's ear and a purple-striped bear's ear. The northern populations are Primula auricula in the strict sense, whilst the other populations are now called Primula lutea.īear's ears were first introduced to British gardeners in the sixteenth century. However, detailed genetic analyses across the species' range have shown populations from the south and east are distinct from those in the north. Under the traditional concept of Primula auricula, the species is distributed from the Alps, through the Apennines and Carpathians into the Balkans, and north into southern Germany and the Tatra mountains. Both the common name and the species epithet refer to the distinctive shape of the leaves. Primula auricula, the mountain cowslip, is a characteristic, spring-flowering alpine of base-rich European mountains. ![]()
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