176 MR. MILLER CHRISTY ON 
hybrids (namely, the “ Hybrid Oxlip” already mentioned) most 
nearly approaches the Cowslip, being umbellate, with bright 
yellow flowers and a large inflated calyx. 
The Hybrid Oxlip, though so common and so generally dis- 
tributed, cannot be regarded otherwise than as a comparatively- 
rare plant, when the enormous abundance of the two parent 
species and the close proximity in which they are frequently 
found are taken into eonsideration. This may, however, be to 
some extent due, not so much to any reluctance on the part of 
the two species, or of either, to enter into a hybrid alliance, but 
to the fact that the flowering-times of the two species are not 
exactly synchronous. The Primrose is everywhere in full flower 
at least a fortnight or three weeks earlier than the Cowslip, and 
the flowers of the former have usually begun to fade before those 
of the latter are fully expanded. 
In the ‘ London Catalogue’ (9th ed., 1896) and many botanical 
books, one finds recorded under the heading Primrose a “var. 
caulescens,” which is supposed to differ only from the type-form 
in that it bears its flowers, not singly, but in umbels. I have 
never been quite able to satisfy myself that such a form ever 
really occurs in a state of nature. I am inclined to think that 
such plants are in all cases due to the seductive hybridizing 
influence of the Cowslip, and that this so-called “ variety” is, 
therefore, only another form of the Common (Hybrid) Oxlip. 
It may be, however, that such a variety really exists; for my 
friend Mr. J. C. Shenstone, of Colchester, has informed me that he 
has found, in the High Woods, near that town, an umbellate 
form of the Primrose, although no Cowslips are known to grow 
within five miles, the species being apparently absent from the 
Tendring Hundred of Essex. 
Probably little doubt would ever have been entertained as to 
the hybrid nature of the Common Oxlip had it not been for the 
fact that it bears a fairly-close general resemblance to a plant 
—an undoubtedly-good species—which is common and widely 
distributed on the Continent and is also met with in the Eastern 
Counties of England, namely, the Primula elatior of Jacquin. 
For more than half a century, it was generally assumed, both n 
Britain and on the Continent, that the * Oxlip" (P. acaulis X 
veris) found more or less commonly throughout the former was 
