268 THE FEIMKOSE FAMILY. 



many places (J. E.) ; farther part of Chat Moss (J. S.) ; Bedford and 

 Astley, not infrequent. (R. H.) Fl. June— August. 

 Curtis, i. 159 ; E. B. viii. 528. 

 Like the great pyramidal loosestrife, a contented but less frequent, and seldomer- 

 blossoming inmate of town gardens. 



8. Pkimkose — {Primula vulgaris.) 

 Woods and hedgebanks. Plentiful about Cheadle ; plentiful about 

 Lyram, especially in Thelwall Rough ; between Ashton-upon-Mersey 

 and Partington, in meadows near the river ; at Alderley, under the 

 Edge ; and innumerable in the Valley of the Bollin, near Cotterill 

 Clough, concerning which locality see "Walks and Wild Flowers," 



p. 32. Fl. April, May. 



Curtis, ii. 380; E. B. i.4. 

 Common in gai'dens, with many varieties, chiefly double, yellow, lilac, crimson, 

 and polyanthus-like, and occasionally with the flowers umbellate, as they are, in 

 fact, in the fields, only that there the scape is usually undevelojied. By careful 

 dissection, the umbel may be taken out entire. The flowers vary, even in the 

 fields, to white, and when the plant grows upon clay, to a dull red. 



9. Cowslip — {Primula veris.) 



Meadows and pastures, but not common. Fields between Bowdon 

 and Cotterill, and near Rostherne. Abundant in a field on the Man- 

 chester side of the Mersey, a little above Northen. (Mr. Knight.) 

 Fields at Lymm and Warburtou, and fields between Reddish and 

 Stockport. Near the bottom of Burnage Lane, on the red clay. 

 Middle Hulton. (R. H.) Plentiful in Worsley and Tyldesley (J. E.), 

 and formerly so at Hope, but now scarce. (J. S.) Fl. May. 

 Curtis, ii. 379 (as P. officinalis) ; E. B. i. 5 ; Baxter, ii. 89. 



Common in gardens, both in its original form and in its lovely progeny, the 

 innumerable varieties of polyanthus. Many varieties also occur which cannot be 

 legitimately called by either name, having tlie form, though more luxuriantly, of 

 the pasture cowslip, with the colour, incipiently, of the polyanthus. The most 

 curious varieties are those in which the calyx is partly or wholly changed into 

 corolla. In one, tolerably common, and often called " King Charles," tlie calyx 

 is half green and half crimson ; in another, a very old-fashioned plant, called 

 "hose-in-hose," the calyx is an exact duplicate of the corolla; and in a third it 

 is formed of five distinct leaves, miniatures in every point of the ordinarj- foliage 

 of the plant, and excellently illustrating the physiological principle, that all the 

 parts of flowers are resolvable into the Lkai', as their common type. 'J'lie grandest 

 elucidation of modern Botany is, that the leaf, the sepal, the petal, the stamen, 

 and the carpel, are so many different mollifications of a single organic base, im- 

 pressed witl) dift"erent forms, and endued with difl'erent functions, but essentially 

 the same, and under certain cir<?uinslances excliangcable one for the other. (See 

 " Life, its Nature, Varieties, and Pheuomeua," p. 330. Ed. 2.) 



