PRIMULACE^. 279 



Through these objectionable practices a gradually increasing extent of 

 country lying around the town is unfortunately being despoiled of many 

 of its natural beauties in the way of ferns and wild flowers. The Primrose 

 shuns the full exposure of the coast, and avoids the light arenaceous 

 soils. Calcareous ones, when sufhciently damp, seem to suit it well, and 

 it aboiuids on the slates and shales. White, purple, and liver-coloured 

 varieties are often met with. I have seen the first in every District, and 

 in a single wood in District v. found several dozens in 1876. Purple or 

 liver-coloured flowered plants I have also noticed in every District, once so 

 many as twenty in one locality. The liver-coloured and white-flowered 

 are both given as Cornish in "Withering's British Plants (ii. 288 ed. 7). 



Darwin has asserted (see Jour. Lin. Soc. Botany, x. 437-54) that the 

 Primrose is never visited by the larger humble bees, and only rarely by 

 smaller kinds, and that consequently its fertilization depends almost 

 exclusively on moths. In this neighbourhood, however, it is visited by 

 many insects besides moths. The bee Anthophora acervorum frequents 

 its flowers, and a very small one, Andrena Gicynana, appears to get a 

 vast quantity of pollen from them. The Brimstone Butterfly {Gonepteryx 

 Rhamni) also visits them, and one of the Dipterw, BomhyJius mediits, 

 seems to obtain a great deal of its food from them. On one day in April, 

 1875, I noticed no less than four humble bees, one a very large one, 

 visiting Primroses (see Jour. Bot. viii. 190). 



The Rev. H. N. Ellacombe says, in his entertaining Plant-Lore and 

 Garden-Craft of Shake-^peare, " I am not aware that Primroses are of 

 any use in medicine or cookery, yet Tusser names the Primrose among 

 ' seeds and herbs for the kitchen ; ' and Lyte says, ' the Cowslips, Prim- 

 roses, and Oxlips are now used dayly amongst other pot herbes, but in 

 physicke there is no great account made of them.'" I quote this to 

 observe that the flowers of the Primrose were, until recently at least, 

 used in the neighbourhood of Plymouth for making a dish known as 

 ' Primrose pudding. ' I well remember the pleasure it afforded my brother 

 and myself when chfldren to gather them for this pui-pose. To the best 

 of my recollection the pudding when brought to table had much the ap- 

 pearance of a boiled batter puddmg, the flowers being compressed into a 

 solid roundish mass, made up with eggs and other ingredients. The taste 

 was insipid. 



Hybrid. P. officinali-vulgaris, Boswell-Syme, Eng. Bot. ed. 3. 

 vars. c. intermedia (and b. caulescens?), Lon. Cat. ''Oxlip.^ 

 p. III. Many plants on hedge-banks about ^laristow, where P. officinalis 

 and P. vulgaris both occur. Farming operations have to some 

 extent confined the cowslip to the borders of the fields and 

 contiguous banks, where the two species are brought into 

 proximity with each other, and here we find the hybrid pro- 



