PRIMROSE TIME. 11 



really composed of separate petals, but tapers beneath 

 into a very long and narrow tube. Cowslips and prim- 

 roses belong by origin to the great division of five-petalled 

 flowers ; for all blossoms originally had their parts ar- 

 ranged either in sets of threes or in sets of fives ; and 

 this distinction, though often obscured, is still the most 

 fundamental one between all flowering species. But in 

 the primrose, as in many other advanced types, the five 

 primitive petals have coalesced at their bases into a single 

 tube, so as to make the honey accessible, only to bees, 

 butterflies, and other insects with a long proboscis, who 

 could benefit the plant by duly effecting the transfer of 

 pollen from the stamens of one flower to the sensitive 

 surface of another. In blossoms with open petals many 

 thieving little creatures come in sideways and steal the 

 honey without going near the pollen at all : in a better 

 adapted flower like the primrose such a mischance is 

 rendered impossible. 



Notice, too, that in both varieties the eye or centre of 

 the corolla is deep orange, while the outside is lighter in 

 tone. This difference in color acts as a honey -guide, and 

 directs the bee straight to the mouth of the tube at whose 

 base the nectar is stored. And now again, let us cut 

 open one or two flowers of each variety, so as to lay bare 

 the interior of the tube. See, they have each two sepa- 

 rate and corresponding forms, known long ago to village 

 children as the thrum-eyed and the pin-eyed primroses 

 or cowslips. In the pin-eyed form the long head of the 

 pistil, looking for all the world like an old-fashioned 

 round-headed pin, reaches just to the top of the tube, 

 and forms the prominent object in the centre, while the 

 five stamens are fastened to the side of the tube about 

 half way down. In the thrum-eyed form, on the con- 

 trary, the stamens make a little ring at the top of the 



