Primula.] peimulace^. 397 



long, stout, pale, nearly simple fibres. Stem none, or rarely produced as in d. 

 Leaves all radical, tufted, the outermost spreading or lying flat, obovate or obo- 

 vato-oblong, from 5 or 6 to 10 or 12 inches long including the petiole, and from 

 2 to 3^ inches broad, pale dull green, slightly glaucous, very obtuse, strongly and 

 rugosely veined above and glabrous or very slightly pubescent only, their mar- 

 gins waved and more or less reflexed, coarsely, unequally and erosely denticu- 

 late, and subsinuately notched ov serrated and crisped ; beneath paler, rugose, 

 finely downy and almost woolly along the copious prominent anastomosing 

 branches, from the very stout, brittle, acute midrib, which is dilated downwards, 

 purplish and raembranously winged at the base forming the petiole, in which the 

 leaf tapers without any contraction as in the Cowslip. Stipules none. Scapes 

 numerous, cylindrical, lax, prostrate in seed, purplish and woolly, about as long 

 as the leaves, single-floweved and mostly quite radicul, but springing from a com- 

 mon centre of the crown or caudex, from which they are occusionally raised on a 

 single peduncle in an umbellate form, as in var. S. and the Polyanthus of the gar- 

 dens, which is a cultivated variety of the common Primrose. Bracts solitary at 

 the base of each scape, linear-subulate or linear-lanceolate, lieeied, gTeen, pale. 

 Calyx erect, pale green, very hairy, ovato-elliptical, scarcely ventricose, narrowed 

 above, with 5 deep, acute, angle-like plaits, terminating in as many narrow, lan- 

 ceolate, \evy acute segments, into which the calyx is cleft for above ^rd of its 

 length, and which equal or even a little exceed the tube of the corolla in length. 

 Corolla large, from 1 to Ijths inch in diameter, slightly downy, pale sulphur-yel- 

 low, sometimes white or purplish red, the limb plane, clefi almost to the nearly 

 cylindrical somewhat angularly ribbed tube into 5 roundish obcordate, deeply 

 emaiginate, sometimes almost bifid segments, each with a dull orange ovate spot 

 at the base, which is traversed along the line of the median nerve by a fulvous 

 and often obsolete streak; t%ibe thin and membranaceous in its lower part, 

 enlarged, funnel-shaped and thickened at tO]), where it is slightly downy and 

 ti-ansversely wrinkled inside, contracted within or at the mouth by a degree of 

 jiuckering which puts on more or less the appearance of a slight crown or border 

 often indistinct or wholly wanting. Stamens inserted either a little belo«- the 

 summit of the tube on %hoT:\. filaments and connivent, or placed about the middle 

 of the lulje sessile and erect; anthers narrow-oblong, yellow. Germen globosely 

 obconic, many-ribbed, pellucid and glabrous. Sti/le slender, cylindrical, some- 

 times enlarged in the lower half, glabrous, much shorter than the tube when the 

 stamens have their higher insertion concealed by them ; about equal to the tube 

 when the stamens are placed lower, and then visible above the latter; stigma 

 capitato-globose, piluso-glandulose. Capsule shorter than the closely investing 

 calyx, ovoid-oblong, conical at top, white and membranous like tissue paper, gla- 

 brous, faintly many- (usually about 10-) ribbed, tipped with the style, opening by 

 several (10 or more) rev olute or recurved teeth. <S>eds numerous, rather large, 

 yellowish or reddish brown, somewhat licniibpherical, bluntly angular, furfura- 

 ceons, scabrous, at length darker and dimjiled. 



Under cultivation, and occusionally in the wild state, the Primrose sends up a 

 single erect stem, various in height, bearing an umbel of reddish- or brown-edged 

 often richly coloured flowers, the well-known Polyanthus of our borders, with all 

 its beautiful but endless varieties. The blossoms "of the wild Polyanthus Primrose 

 are usually liver-coloured, as we see they become in poor or neglected garden soil; 

 I have gathered this form near Hastings, but have never met with it in the Isle 

 of Wight myself, though it has occurred to Mr. Albert Hambrough. The 

 flowers of this, as well as of the next, often turn wholly or partially green in 

 drying. 



2. P. veris, L. Cowdip Paigle. " Leaves ovate crenate toothed 

 wrinkletl contvacted below the middle, scape umbellate, flowers 

 drooping, calyx titbular canipanulate, teeth short ovate, limb of 

 the eoiolla concave, tube witli a circle of scale-lilce folds at the 

 slightly contracted mouth."— .Br. Fl. p. 330. E. B. t. 5. 



