82 SWISS FLOWERS. 



who was content to go no further in his knowledge of the 

 Primrose-family than what could be thus described : 



A yellow Primrose 'twas to him, 

 And it was nothing more. 



For that it is one of the families most given to vary, anyone 

 may know who will watch the changed colour which so often 

 and so soon comes to a common Primrose planted in a 

 garden. Linnaeus included Primrose, Oxlip and Cowslip 

 in one species ; but, though his name may thus be used to 

 sanction some of the new views of species, these three do 

 seem tolerably and constantly distinct. It would not, how- 

 ever, be easy to name several of the links which occur 

 between them. The same remark will apply to the Primulas 

 peculiarly Swiss, and this may occasion the different names 

 given to the same species. It is not the thoroughly English 

 species of the Primula for which Switzerland is remarkable, 

 though that is found there ; but we meet with species in 

 abundance on the Swiss mountains which are unknown with 

 us, or which are found only in some localities — as the 

 pretty pink P. farinosa, met with only in the northern 

 counties of England, and some parts of Scotland. 



P. auricula (Fig. 63), so well known from having been a 

 much-prized florist's flower, and from being now so much 

 cultivated as a border plant, is well represented among the 

 high Swiss mountains, where it appears soon after the 

 melting of the snow. The stalk, rising three or four inches. 



