4 COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



out prodigiously, 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 neighbour primroses. The two varieties have 

 now become practically almost distinct, because each 

 naturally sticks to its own best-adapted haunts, and is 

 usually crossed only by pollen of its own kind. But the 

 oxlip is a sort of undecided tertium quid, an undifferen- 

 tiated relic of the old undivided ancestral form, which 

 grows in intermediate situations, and crosses now with 

 one plant and now with the other, so preventing either 

 from finally taking its stand as a truly separate species. 



The reason why the thorough-going primroses do 

 not cross with the thorough-going cowslips is easy 

 enough to understand : they are seldom both in blossom 

 together. This, again, naturally results from the form 

 and habit of the two flowers. In both, the head of 

 bloom is produced from material laid by during the past 

 year in the perennial rootstock ; and in both, the buds 

 begin to sprout as soon as the weather grows warm 

 enough for them to venture forth with safety. But the 

 ' rathe primrose ' bursts into blossom first, because it has 

 only to produce short subsidiary stalks for each separate 

 flower ; the cowslip lingers somewhat later, because it 

 has to send up a stout common stem, besides forming 

 the minor pedicels for the individual cups. Their other 

 differences are all of similar small kinds. The primrose, 

 standing straight up from the earth, receives the fertil- 

 ising bee or butterfly on the face of its wide open 

 corolla ; the cowslip, a little pendulous by nature, re- 



