44 



have dried garden-grown examples of them, which may at least suffice 

 to show the plants intended by the names to those botanists who have 

 imbibed a prejudice (for so I must venture to designate it) against her- 

 barium specimens obtained from gardens. It will be apparent from 

 my dried specimens of the " intermedia," that the colour and size of 

 the flowers, the form of the calyx, and the pubescence, are truly inter- 

 mediate ; the inflorescence is perfectly umbellate and caulescent, as 

 in the cowslip, but the pedicels are more upright at an early stage ; the 

 corollas less concave than in the cowslip ; the leaves nearer the prim- 

 rose in outline. At the time of sending my specimens to London, the 

 colour is perfectly preserved, but it will change by damp, and slowly 

 by time. I may add, although the flowers and leaves are garden-grown, 

 that the original root was a genuinely wild one. It is the plant whose 

 seeds produced the heterogeneous assemblage of cowslips, primroses, 

 &c, recorded in the ' Phytologist,' ii. 217 and 852. 



Primula verts var. major (Lond. Cat.). — The explanations given 

 with the preceding, apply in part to this plant. It is highly uncertain 

 whether it should be placed as a variety of cowslip or of primrose. 

 By its short and close pubescence, its umbellate and caulescent in- 

 florescence, its short and broad calycine teeth, it is a cowslip ; but in 

 its paler-coloured flowers, less concave and larger, it diverges towards 

 the primrose. The leaves are rather more like those of the primrose, 

 particularly in the specimens distributed, which are accordingly 

 labelled " subvariety, with leaves like the primrose." The plant which 

 produced these specimens, came up from some self-sown seeds by the 

 side of a wild plant of P. veris var. major, which had been transplanted 

 into my garden, but which had leaves less like those of the wild prim- 

 rose than are the leaves of its offspring. 



Experimental Primula. — In connexion with the preceding, I may 

 also mention that I have dried many examples of the mixed assemblage 

 of varieties produced from the seeds of ' Primula vulgaris var. inter- 

 media,' as recorded in the 'Phytologist,' ii. 217. These are made up 

 into twenty packets, each containing a few specimens, not sufficient to 

 exhibit all the gradual steps of transition, but sufficient to show that 

 there is a transition from genuine primroses to genume cowslips. 

 Even those botanists who refuse faith in the carefulness or exactness 

 of the experiments on record, may see with their own eyes that the in- 

 termediate links do exist. Indeed, they may be raised by anybody, 

 may be seen in many gardens, or may be found wild by diligent search. 

 Nevertheless, while I see no escape from the necessity of doing so, I 

 am still somewhat reluctant to place cowslip and primrose as a single 



