398 PEiMtJi/ACE.E. [Primula. 



« * * * 11 Cowslips of gold bloom, 

 That in the pasture and the meadow come, 

 Shall come when kings and empires fade and die ; 

 And in the closes, as Time's partners, lie 

 As fresh two thousand years to come as now, 

 With those five crimson spots upon their brow.'' 



Clare's Rural Muse. — The Eternity of Nature. 



/3. elatior, Linn. P. elatior,* PFith. (not Jacq.) Limb of the corolla fiat. 



* The true P. elatior, Jacq. (and Linn. P), first formally brought before the 

 notice of British botanists in 1842, by Mr. H. Doubleday, who discovered it in 

 wet meadows at Bardfield, Essex, and published it in the ' Phytologist' (vol. i. p. 

 204) as probably the genuine plant of that name of the German botanists, has 

 certainly much the air of a distinct species ; yet do the observations of Mr. H. C. 

 Watson (Phytol. i. p. 1001) tend to throw doubt on the fact of its distinctness, he 

 having " seen exceptional instances to all the characters (taken singly) by which 

 this plant is distinguished from the other two species in Babington's Manual; the 

 specific characters drawn out by that author being quite accurate but not invariably 

 applicable." Mr. Watson has however added a character which he thinks of 

 apparently greater permanency, namely, the abseuce of any " scale-like gland " at 

 the orifice of the tube of the corolla, though anything deserving of that name I 

 am unable to perceive in either the Primrose or Cowslip, beyond a degree of 

 puckering at the margin of the tube, which puts on more or less the appearance 

 of a slight crown or border, often very indisliuct or wholly wanting. 



The Bardfield O. elatior is admirably represented in E. B. vol. xiii. t. 513, 

 doubtless from Essex or at least eastern-county specimens, as they were commu- 

 nicated to Sowerby by the Rev. Mr. Hempstead, who I believe resided in Essex. 

 The leaves of the Bardfield Oxlip exactly resemble in general those of the Cows- 

 lip, but in many of the fresh specimeus before me they are as much like those of 

 the Primrose, and taper as they do gradually into the footstalk without any con- 

 traction or abruptness whatever, which is sometimes seen in the Cowslip. The 

 calyx ill most of my specimens is close, narrow and nearly cylindrical or tubular, 

 being but slightly veutricose or inflated, a little shorter than tlie tube of the 

 corolla, acutely 5-rilibed and angled, the teeth shortish and mostly acuminate, 

 broader in ])roportion than those of the Primrose, but in some of the specimens the 

 calyx makes a considerable approach to that of the Primrose in becoming ovoid 

 and somewhat ventricose. The throat of the corolla is remarkably open, and free 

 from those plaits or puckers usually so conspicuous in the Primrose, being in fact 

 funnel-shaped both within and without. The limb of the corolla is sometimes 

 flat, more usually cup- or funnel-sha)ied (another point of resemblance to the 

 Cowslip), but in colour is intermediate betwixt that and the Primrose, as we usu- 

 ally see it in our commonly so-called oxlips. The flowers are pleasantly but not 

 powerfully scented, and are drooping (at least the outer ones) as in the Cowslip ; 

 the corolla has much moie the form of the Primrose than of the Cowslip, but is 

 hardly more than half the size of the former, and the segments are less rounded 

 or more abrupt, and do not overlie each other, but are separated by an evident 

 space their entire length in most instances, an appearance which the umbellate 

 var. of P. vulgaris also puts on. The scapes vary much in hairiness, but in gene- 

 ral are very densely clothed with woolly pubescence. In the length of the style 

 and position of the stamens it varies like the rest of the genus. Gaudin (Fl. Helv. 

 ii. p. 84) remarks of our P. elatior, "Priori (P. vulgaris) utraque nimis aifinis, ut 

 in speciminibus quibusdam characteres diagnostici fere omniuo evanescent." He 

 might have added that it comes as near to P. veris as to P. vulgaris, and is nearly 

 as exactly intermediate betwixt them as are many of our false oxlips. The same 

 acute botanist notices the extremely acute calyx-segments of P. elatior, " calyce 

 acutissimo,'' as part of his specific character. The only tolerably certain figure of 

 P. elatior I can find in the works of the older botanists is that of Glusiu.s, Rar. 



