PRIM'ULA VE'RIS. 
COWSLIP. Garden variety. 
Class. 
PENT-ANDRIA. 
Order. 
MONOGVNIA. 
Natural Order. 
PRIMCLACEjE. 
Garden 
Height. 
Flowers in 
Duration. 
Raised 
Seedling. 
9 inches. 
May. 
Perennial. 
in 1842. 
No. 1009. 
Primus, signifying first, gives us the name of 
one amongst wild flowers which ranks as the uni- 
versal favourite of spring. Its flowers are the first 
on our hedge banks, that prominently greet us, and 
the name alludes to the fact. The Cowslip ranks 
as a species of Primula ; and in courtesy to 
modern botanists, we call it Primula veris, al- 
though we consider it really to be but a variety of 
the common Primrose — Primula viflgaris. This 
we mentioned twenty years ago, (see No. 60) and 
time has given additional evidence in support of 
the opinion. Linneus did rightly in making the 
Primrose, O.xlip, and Cowslip, varieties of one 
species. Primroses with scapes, O.xlips without 
them; Cowslips scarcely distinguishable from Ox- 
lips; and O.xlips having a portion of their flowers 
small, like Cowslips; seedlings of one sporting 
into all the others ; and the total absence of any 
legitimate specific character by which the three 
plants may, with certainty, he distinguished, are, 
surely, lu’gent reasons for uniting them. We here 
give a plate of two varieties of the Cowslip, raised 
from seed of the wild one ; selected from many 
2.V3. 
