Botanical Society of' London. 515 



fore to be expected that there should be the like in respect of times 

 of leafing. 



This may throw some light on the question respecting " acclima- 

 ting." It may be, that species may be brought to bear climates ori- 

 ginally ill-suited, — not by any especial virtue in the seeds ripened in 

 any particular climate, but — by multiplying seedlings, a few of which, 

 out of multitudes, may have qualities suited to this or that country, 

 e.g. some to cold, some to drought, some to wet, &c. 



In some cases, a plant's beginning to vegetate later may secure it 

 from spring frosts, which would destroy a precocious variety ; in 

 others, earlier flowering may enable a tree to ripen fruit in a climate 

 in which a later would be useless, &c. 



Further, the experiment shows that the common opinion respecting 

 the commencement of spring vegetation, — the rise of the sap from 

 the roots, through the trunk and branches to the twigs, — is ground- 

 less ; since a scion of an early variety, on a late stock, will be in leaf 

 while the stock is torpid. 



BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



April 18, 1842.— Dr. Willshire in the Chair. 



Mr. Edward Doubleday exhibited a Primula found at Bardfield, 

 Essex, and stated that a few years ago his brother, Mr. Henry Dou- 

 bleday, observed that the Oxlips growing near Bardfield were striking- 

 ly different from those found in the vicinity of Epping, where the 

 Oxlip is not common ; and that further observation had induced him 

 to believe that the Bardfield plant was a distinct species, an opinion 

 in which he (Mr. E. D.) was disposed to concur. Mr. Doubleday 

 next referred to an article in the ' Gardener's Chronicle,' and point- 

 ed out the resemblance of the Bardfield plant to the one there alluded 

 to. He expressed his opinion very decidedly that there were in En- 

 gland three distinct species of Primula, known by the names of Prim- 

 rose, Cowslip or Pagel, and Oxlip, but that the Oxlip, commonly so 

 called, is nothing more than a hybrid between the Primrose and 

 Cowslip. This hybrid is extensively distributed over the country, 

 especially in localities where the Primrose and Cowslip abound : it 

 constantly exhibits a tendency to revert to the Primrose by throwing 

 up single flowers of precisely the Primrose character, as well as 

 others possessing characters of its other parent, the Oxlip. 



As a natural consequence, such a hybrid would reproduce at times 

 both the parent species, a fact Mr. Doubleday believes to be fully 

 proved. 



The Bardfield plant, which Mr. Doubleday considers the true Ox- 

 lip, differs from the hybrid in the form of the calyx, in its drooping 

 umbel, and in its leaves dying off in autumn : he has examined thou- 

 sands of plants at and near Bardfield, and never observed a single in- 

 stance of a solitary flower being thrown up as in the hybrid. The 

 Primrose does not occur for some miles round Bardfield, though the 

 Cowslip is abundant ; therefore hybridization cannot well take place 

 in that locality. The plant under cultivation does not change its 

 character. Should it prove a distinct species, Mr. Doubleday claim- 

 ed for his brother the credit of first detecting the distinction. 



