PRIMROSE TIME. 3 



tall scapes not yet much more than just raised above the 

 level of the greensward. For at bottom primroses and 

 cowslips are really identical : even the old-fashioned 

 botanists have freely allowed that much, and have re- 

 united the two varieties as a single species under a 

 common name. The leaves are absolutely indistin- 

 guishable, 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 fertilising 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 

 produces one at all to speak of. Each separate primrose 

 springs by a distinct stem from a very stumpy and 

 dwarfish 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 prim- 

 rose 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 



