THE PUIMKOSE FAMILY. 269 



Whether these two plants, the primrose and the cowslip, be really distinct, is 

 by many botanists doubted, and some do not hesitate to call them the same. For 

 my own part I believe them genuine species. Specific distinctiveness is -not a 

 matter wholly of shape. It includes the whole nature of a plant, its habits, 

 tendencies, and capacities, and every circumstance connected with its life and 

 position in the economy of the world. The primrose loves shade, growing on 

 sheltered banks and in sylvan retreats, and blooms with the wood-anemone, or 

 just as the latter is on the wane. The cowslip, on the other hand, seldom or 

 never seeks the protection of trees, but courts the sunshine in the open fields, 

 blossoming, in its wild state, when the primrose is past its prime, and keeping com- 

 pany with the meadow orchis, which rarely opens till the anemones are all gone. 



In the field behind Castle Mill, near the entrance to Cotterill Clough, I have 

 gathered the plant figured in Curtis, iii. 458, and E. B. viii. 513, as the "oxlip," 

 or Primula eldtior, and commonly called by that name in the cowslip districts, 

 where it is common (as about Congleton and Bristol), as well as in old-fashioned 

 gardens. It resembles the cowslip in its umbellate inflorescence, but the limb of 

 the corolla is nearly flat, the stalk is stouter and taller, the flowers are of pro- 

 portionately greater size, and half-erect, like those of the garden polyanthus, of 

 which it is probably one of the intermediate or proximate sources. Pale-flowered 

 varieties remind us of the umbellated primrose. This plant, however, is quite a 

 dififerent thing from the genuine oxlip. It is not even a species, for the seeds 

 produce along with oxlips resembling the parent plant, cowslips also, and even 

 primroses. This plainly proves it to be a mule or hybrid between those two 

 plants, the result of the bees and other insects carrying the pollen from the 

 stamens of one kind of flower, and depositing it upon the stigma of the other, as 

 they continually do with cucumbers and melons, much to the gardener's annoy- 

 ance. The true oxlip is an exceedingly rare plant, and was only determined to 

 be a native of this country about fifteen years a^o, when Mr. Doubleday, of 

 Epping, discriminated it as the " Bardfield osUp," by which name it is now known 

 among botanists. It blossoms a month earlier than the hybrid commonly called 

 the oxlip; its flowers droop instead of standing nearly erect, and it i-eproduces 

 itself unaltered, and without any intermixture of primroses and cowslips among 

 its progeny. This, at least, is the experience of Mr. Sidebotham, who has culti- 

 vated and carefully watched the plant since 1844. Botanists misled into the 

 belief of the hybrid or common oxlip being the genuine Primula elatior, and 

 finding it produce primroses and cowslips when the seed was sown, have naturally 

 inferred that all three plants are but one, the oxlip being the bridge that unites 

 the two extremes. But this is quite an uncalled-for notion. There are three 

 genuine species, the cowslip or Primula veris, the primrose or Primula vulgaris, 

 and the oxlip or Primula elatior; and in addition to these, there is the hybrid 

 plant, erroneously called P. elatior, and which belongs to the Manchester Flora, 

 though the true oxlip does not. The hybrid plant has been found also atGatley, 

 Preslwich, Levenshulme, and other places. 



The Primulacece in cultivation are numerous, the polyanthus, the primrose, 

 and the cowslip standing forth simply as their popular representatives. The 



