Yana 
“a 
PRIMULA ELATIOR IN BRITAIN. 191 
The abundance of the Oxlip in any particular wood varies 
greatly, itis true, according to circumstances. In a wood which 
is fully grown-up, the plant neither grows nor flowers, as a rule, 
in any special abundance *. When a wood is cut down, how- 
ever—as all woods are every ten or fifteen years—an extra- 
ordinary change takes place. The sudden access of light and 
heat stimulates every plant to grow and to flower to the utmost 
of its power. The plants become larger and the umbels finer 
and more numerous. Simultaneously, various aberrations or 
monstrosities (to be referred to hereafter) appear. The full 
effect of this “ stimulation " (as I call it) is, I think, observable 
in the second spring after a wood has been cut down. At such 
à time, a wood within the Oxlip-Area presents very striking and 
beautiful sight, the ground appearing yellow all round. On one 
occasion, by counting the number of plants growing on a typical 
space measuring four yards square and the number of umbels 
those plants bore, I was able to estimate that each acre bore 
about 70,000 plants having between them 220,000 umbels—an 
estimate I have reason to believe was very much below the mark. 
After the second or third year, the effect of stimulation passes 
of, leaving the plants in a weak and exhausted condition. 
Gradually the increase of grass and weeds smothers and hides 
the Oxlip plants; but, as time goes on, the former are, in their 
turn, smothered by the growth of the wood itself, and then the 
abundance of the Oxlip again becomes apparent, though com- 
paratively few flowers are, as a rule, produced until the time for 
cutting down of the wood again comes round. A similar effect 
5 produced upon the Primrose by the cutting down of the woods 
n which it grows; but the effect is not, I think, so remarkable 
as In the case of the Oxlip. 
MP natural that a plant so abundant and well known locally 
e Oxlip should have, within the area occupied by it, various 
local names, The name *Oxlip" (though used by Ray T, as 
* 
for M occasionally observed marked departures from this general rule, 
Browing a at. unable to account. For instance, I observed the Oxlip both 
Brinkle C flowering in immense abundance in a wood fully grown-up at 
fu item Lo idgeshire, on April 19th, 1897, and a few days later 1n two 
f Omt Woods between Barrow and Denham, Suffolk. _ 
p. 71, ogus Plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium ' (Cambr., 1660), 
