PRIMROSE TIME. 9 



able, as you observe when you look closely at them ; 

 the structure of the individual flowers is the same in all 

 important points : they only differ in the arrangement 

 of the blossoms on the stem ; and even in that the two 

 forms are connected by every intermediate stage in the 

 third dubious variety known as the oxlip. Why, then, 

 do cowslips differ from primroses .at all ? For a very 

 simple yet ingenious reason. 



The true primrose almost always grows on a bank or 

 slope, where its blossoms can readily be seen by the bees 

 and other fertilizing insects without the need for any tall 

 common flower-stalk. Hence its stalk is undeveloped, 

 as the scientific folk put it in other words, it never pro- 

 duces one at all to speak of. Each separate primrose 

 springs by a distinct stem from a very stumpy and dwarf- 

 ish thick little stock, which represents the same organ as 

 the long and graceful stalk of the cowslip. This stock 

 is so short that it is quite hidden by the close rosette of 

 downy wrinkled leaves ; but if you examine it carefully 

 you will see that the flowers are arranged upon it in an 

 umbel or circular group, exactly like that of its taller 

 and slenderer nodding relative. Each primrose blossom 

 is also larger, so as more easily to secure the attention of 

 the passing bee. In the cowslip, on the other hand, 

 growing as it usually does on level ground, the common 

 stalk has acquired a habit of lengthening out prodig- 

 iously, so as to raise its clustered bunch of flowers well 

 above the ground and the surrounding grasses, and thus 

 catch the eye of some roaming insect, who could never 

 have perceived its buried blossoms if they were laid as 

 close to the grass-clad earth as in the case of the neighbor 

 primroses. The two varieties have now become prac- 

 tically almost distinct, because each naturally sticks to its 

 own best- adapted haunts, and is usually crossed only by 



