60 



HYBRID PRIMULAS. 



Chap. II. 



characters, that they inhabit slightly different stations 

 and range differently. Hence those botanists who 

 rank these plants as varieties ought to be able to prove 

 that they are not as well fixed in character as are most 

 species; and the evidence in favour of such instability 

 of character appears at first sight very strong. It 

 rests, first, on statements made by several competent 

 observers that they have raised cowslips, primroses, and 

 oxlips from seeds of the same plant; and, secondly, 

 on the frequent occurrence in the state of nature of 

 plants presenting every intermediate gradation between 

 the cowslip and primrose. 



The first statement, however, is of little value; 

 for, heterostylism not being formerly understood, 

 the seed-bearing plants were in no instance * pro- 

 tected from the visits of insects; and there would 

 be almost as much risk of an isolated cowslip, or of 

 several cowslips if consisting of the same form, being 

 crossed by a neighbouring primrose and producing ox- 

 lips, as of one sex of a dioecious plant, under similar 

 circumstances, being crossed by the opposite sex of 

 an allied and neighbouring species. Mr. H. C. Wat- 

 son, a critical and most careful observer, made many 

 experiments by sowing the seeds of cowslips and of 

 various kinds of oxlips, and arrived at the following 

 conclusion,! namely, "that seeds of the cowslip can 

 produce cowslips and oxlips, and that seeds of an oxlip 

 can produce cowslips, oxlips, and primroses." This 

 conclusion harmonises perfectly with the view that in 



* One author states in the ' Phy- 

 tologist ' (vol. iii. p. 703) that he 

 covered with bell-glasses some cow- 

 slips, primroses, &c, on which he 

 experimented. He specifies all 

 the details of his experiment, but 

 does not say that he artificially 

 fertilised his plants ; yet he ob- 



tained an abundance of seed, 

 which is simply impossible. 

 Hence there must have been 

 some strange error in these ex- 

 periments, which may be passed 

 over as valueless. 



t 'PhytologisV ii. pp. 217, 852; 

 iii. p. 43. 



