200 MR. MILLER CHRISTY ON 
Stour. I have seen none of these localities in the heart of the 
Oxlip-Area—a fact for which I am unable to account. 
There is another respect in which our English plant may 
differ from the Continental plant. Nearly all Continental bota- 
nical works describe P. elatior as scentless (inodore). If they 
are right in so doing (which I cannot help doubting) they estab- 
lish a somewhat remarkable point of difference; for our English 
plant has a scent as strong as, if not stronger than, those of the 
Primrose and Cowslip, from both of which, though similar, it 
may be readily distinguished. 
The Oxlip presents, in this country, so far as I know, only one 
departure from the type-form which may be classed as a variety : 
that is, a single-flowered, or acaulescent, form which appears not 
uncommonly very early in the flowering season—for the most 
part before the umbellate flowers have bloomed—and then only, 
so far as my observation goes. These flowers (though occa- 
sionally marked by certain aberrant developments to be men- 
tioned shortly) are, in all essential respects, absolutely true 
Oxlip flowers and preseut no traces whatever of hybridism, while 
the plants producing them nearly always produce also, later in 
the season, flowers in normal umbels. Moreover, a plant which I 
have in cultivation has produced a full complement of seeds from 
one of these single flowers. Examination nearly always shows 
that these single flowers spring from one radical point. They may, 
therefore, I think, be said to grow in what may be called “ sessile 
umbels”—umbels of which the peduncle has been suppressed ; 
and the existence of these no doubt shows a certain tendency on 
the part of the plant to revert to an ancestral mode of inflores- 
cence. If this form be deemed to be of varietal rank (which I 
do not myself consider it to be), I venture to propose for it the 
name var. acaulis. 
The Oxlip in this country also not unfrequently assumes 
forms which may be regarded as monstrous rather than varietal. 
These, moreover, are almost invariably due to “ stimulation," if 
not entirely so. The chief of these monstrosities or aberrations 
is that *fasciated" form in which a number of peduncles and 
umbels are (as it were) fused together side by side. In these 
fasciated specimens the peduncle, though no thicker than usual, 
1$ much broader, being more or less ribbon-like. I have fre- 
quently seen, growing under the influence of stimulation, fasciate 
peduncles bearing from forty or fifty up to one hundred flowers 
