Apiil 14, 1887] 



NA TURE 



561 



science is still among educational appliances in 

 general, it is extraordinarily large in proportion to 

 the place permitted it when Dr. Tyndall commenced 

 his courses a third of a centur)- back. Scientific 

 truth was valued and sought by the few then as now. 

 They themselves scarcely regarded it as a subject 

 which concerned the rest of the community. At large 

 the most extraordinary obtuseness prevailed. The feeble 

 attempts to impart a little superficial information in 

 schools and lecture-halls rendered the darkness more 

 visible. From the Royal Institution, as from the several 

 centres occupied at various times by Mr. Huxley, poured 

 a continuous expostulation against popular ignorance of 

 the veiy bases of physical existence. The force of the 

 appeals lay in their tone of moral anger at an apathy 

 represented as a degrading baseness. Their special 

 virtue was the detennination, which never flagged, to 

 abandon nothing of the exactness of science in popu- 

 larising it. Prof. Tyndall, like his constant fellow-worker, 

 has never for an instant looked upon the masses as en- 

 titled only to second-rate knowledge. They have had it of 

 the highest and purest which it was within his means to 

 supply. He has admitted no distinction between esoteric 

 and exoteric teaching. He has not put off an audience 

 even of children with the modern equivalents for the 

 worsted orreries and Prince Rupert's drops of element- 

 ary philosophy fifty years ago. In his hands science 

 for the most rudimentary educational purposes has been 

 treated as reverentially as for the most transcendental. 

 It has walked with head as erect in the Royal Institution 

 theatre during the Christmas holidays as at a session of 

 the Royal Society or the British Association. The result 

 has been that, if the country has not learnt all il might 

 and ought, it has learnt little which it will have to unlearn. 

 It has not been condemned to drink either scientific dregs 

 or scientific scum." 



We regard the appearance of the article from which 

 the above quotation has been taken as one of the results 

 of the increased appreciation of science which has 

 followed from the crusade in which Prof. Tyndall has 

 played so important a part, and we confess it is not with- 

 out misgivings that we contemplate a future, which we 

 trust may be a distant one, in which Prof. Tyndall's un- 

 swerving advocacy of research for its own sake, and the 

 example of his devotion to science, unsuUied by con- 

 siderations of filthy lucre, are no more among us. 



We believe that all the arrangements at the Institution 

 consequent upon Prof. Tyndall's retirement are not yet 

 completed, but we learn that Lord Rayleigh has all but 

 agreed to take some part, at all events, of the duties of 

 the Chair. 



This will be good news to all true friends of science. 

 The Institution has a long and noble reputation to keep 

 or to lose. In Lord Rayleigh's hands we know it will 

 be safe. 



PRIMROSES 



T^HE very word awakens the pleasantest memories 

 •*• that remain to us from the time when we almost 

 lived in the open air and enjoyed the intense delight of 

 plucking wild flowers without let or hindrance ; a pure 

 and unalloyed delight actually experienced only in child- 

 hood, though it lives evergreen in our hearts, and leavens 

 the more serious pleasures of riper years. The primrose 

 of primroses for all Britons is the wild yellow primrose 

 that adorns woods, hedgerows, and banks from Cornwall 

 and Sussex to the Shetlands, Orkneys, and Hebrides ; for 

 none is more lovely, though many among the endless 

 variety spread over the north temperate and cold regions 

 excel it in warmth and brilliancy of colouring. It is now 

 about a year since botanists and gardeners met at 

 South Kensington, whither they had brought their collec- 



tions of living plants, comprising a large number of 

 species and varieties of I'limula, solely for the purpose of 

 seeing and talking about primroses, polyanthuses, and 

 auriculas ; and the vast amount of information contained 

 in the report of the proceedings of those assembled merits 

 the attention of all naturalists, to say nothing of those 

 who love flowers merely for the pleasure they aftbrd the 

 eye. Being hardy, primroses were among the first plants 

 cultivated in this country when ornamental flower-garden- 

 ing began, little more than three centuries ago. The old 

 masters — Turner, Gerard, and Parkinson — introduce us 

 to them, the first including in his " Libellus" only the 

 prymcrose ; but at that date (1538) there seems to have 

 been no such thing in England as the cultivation of 

 flowers for their beauty alone. Gerard's first catalogue 

 of plants cultivated in his garden at Holborn, and pub- 

 lished in 1596, contains "primroses, birds eies, paigles, 

 cowslips, and beares eares " : respectively Ptimiila vul- 

 giirts, P./a/iiiosa, P. verts, and J'. mi7-icula ; and this is 

 the earliest English catalogue of professedly cultivated 

 flowers. Parkinson describes in his " Paradisus " (1629) 

 twenty-one sorts of " beares eares " or auriculas, and he 

 mentions that the varieties cultivated were much more 

 numerous than he intended describing. In the report 

 alluded to, Shirley Hibberd states that in the year 1570 

 many artisans, driven from the Netherlands, settled in 

 this country, bringing with them their favourite flowers, 

 including the best of their auriculas. Thus it would 

 appear that the auricula was one of the very earliest 

 " florists' flowers " cultivated in this country ; and it is 

 hardly necessary to say that it is one of the chief 

 favourites of the present day. One of the questions dis- 

 cussed at the Conference was the parentage of the true 

 auriculas and the Alpine auriculas, a question upon which 

 florists and botanists did not quite agree ; and the only 

 way of obtaining a solution of the problem is by experi- 

 ment. It is nearly certain, however, that more than one 

 species has been concerned in the production of the 

 various cultivated races. On the one side it has been 

 argued that the presence of true blue is almost absolute 

 proof that they cannot all have descended from a species 

 having yellow flowers ; and it is true that both wild and 

 cultivated plants which exhibit great variety in the colour 

 of their flowers rarely offer both pure blue and pure red. 

 The china-aster {Callisteplius chinensis) is an exception, 

 but whether both colours exist in the wild plant I cannot 

 ascertain. Philip Miller, who was the first to cultivate it 

 in this country, states that he received seeds from France 

 of the red and white varieties in 1731 and of a blue in 

 1736. Amongst our native plants a very large number of 

 those having normally blue or red flowers frequently pro- 

 duce white varieties ; and I have myself picked red as 

 well as white varieties of the bluebell {Scilla mitans), 

 though it is true the red was not a very pure one. On the 

 other hand, normally yellow flowers rarely sport into 

 other colours. 



To return to the primroses: the introduction in 1820 

 of the Chinese primrose added a permanently popular 

 greenhouse flower, which is now raised by hundreds of 

 thousands, indeed one might say millions, annually ; and 

 almost every florist of note has his special "strains" or 

 varieties, varying in colour from pure white to crimson, 

 and equally in the size and cutting of the leaves and 

 flowers, which are either double or single. The double- 

 flowered varieties are relatively difficult to cultivate, as 

 they are propagated by oft'sets, and are less vigorous in 

 constitution. Like the china-aster, this was unknown in 

 a wild state until recently, when the Abbe David dis- 

 covered it in the province of Hupeh. 



Persons familiar only with the species of Primula 

 hitherto mentioned can form no idea of the amount of 

 variation exhibited by the whole genus, which embraces 

 at least 1 10 distinct species, widely spread in the temper- 

 ate and cold regions of the northern hemisphere, rare in 



