695 



unquestioned faith of their forefathers and the creed of their child- 

 hood, and consent to believe in their identity. 



The plant now regarded as the true P. elatior, L. ? and of Jacquin, 

 and first formally brought before the notice of British botanists in 

 1842 by Mr. H. Doubleday, who discovered it in wet meadows at 

 Bardfield, in Essex, and published it in this journal (Phytol. i. 204) 

 as probably the genuine plant of that name of the German botanists, 

 has certainly much the air of a distinct species, yet do the observa- 

 tions of Mr. H. C. Watson (Phytol. i. 1001) tend to throw doubt on 

 the fact, he having, like myself, "seen exceptional instances to all the 

 characters (taken singly) by which this plant is distinguished from P. 

 vulgaris and P. veris in Mr. Babington's Manual ; the specific cha- 

 racter drawn out by that author being quite accurate, but not invari- 

 ably applicable." On the 19th of last April I visited Bardfield with 

 the view of seeing and procuring specimens and roots of the plant in 

 its native locality, when the impression I received from the sight of 

 some acres of meadow covered with it in full flower, was, that of its 

 being a third and probably equally permanent race or variety of the 

 same Primula of which our primrose and cowslip are co-ordinate re- 

 presentatives. 



The Bardfield P. elatior is admirably depicted in E. B. vol. xv. t. 

 513, doubtless from eastern county specimens, as they were commu- 

 nicated to Sowerby by the Rev. Mr. Hempstead, who, I believe, re- 

 sided in Essex. The leaves of the Bardfield oxlip exactly resemble 

 in general those of the cowslip, but in many of my specimens they 

 are as much like those of the primrose, tapering, as they do, gradually 

 into the foot-stalk without any contraction or abruptness, and as they 

 are sometimes seen to do in the cowslip also. The calyx in most of 

 my specimens is close, narrow and nearly cylindrical or tubular, 

 being but slightly ventricose or inflated, a little shorter than the tube 

 of the corolla, acutely five-ribbed and angled, the teeth shortish and 

 mostly acuminate, broader in proportion than those of the primrose, 

 but in some of the specimens the calyx makes a considerable ap- 

 proach to that of the primrose in becoming ovoid and ventricose. 

 The throat of the corolla is remarkably open, and free from those 

 folds, plaits or puckers, giving the appearance of a slight crown or 

 border to the tube, often so conspicuous in the primrose,* being, in 



* Mr. Watson thought the want of these folds might prove a good character in the 

 Bardfield oxlip, but they are often very indistinct or wholly obliterated in the prim- 

 rose itself, and still oftener in the cowslip, the throat of which is much less contracted 

 than in the primrose. 



