THE COWSLIP— continued. 
The fruit of the Family is a capsule ; and the evidence of development, its 
splitting in some cases into five valves, and the occasional abnormal replacement of 
the gynasceum by five leaves, combine to prove that the globular ovary, undivided 
style, and rounded stigma represent five united carpels. Whether the free-central 
placenta is axial or carpellary in origin is a further subject for anatomical debate 
afforded by this interesting group of plants. 
Pax, in monographing the Family for Engler and Prantl’s “ Naturliche Pflanzen- 
familien,” divides it into five Tribes, of which only the first four, with polysymmetric 
flowers, have British representatives, while the fourth — not represented among our 
Plates — comprises Cyclamen and Dodecatheon , the American Cowslip, with a reflexed 
corolla. The first two of his Tribes, Primule<e and Samole^e , agree in the estivation 
of their corollas, which is that known technically as quincuncial , two petals having 
both edges outside, two with both inside, and the fifth with one overlapping and one 
underlapping. Samolus, the only genus in the Samolece , differs from the Primule<e in 
having the calyx partly adherent to the ovary. 
The genus Primula is distinguished by its tubular calyx, salver-shaped corolla, 
tubular below, with a more or less spreading limb, and five valves each splitting into 
two teeth in the ripe capsule. It includes upwards of 150 species ; and, though its 
headquarters would seem to be in western China — the home of such beautiful 
favourites as P. sinensis Sabine, P. obconica Hance, and P. cockburniana Hemsley — it is 
very widely dispersed, our lovely little northern Bird’s-eye Primrose ( P.farinosa Linne) 
being represented by a very slightly differing variety in the distant Falkland Islands. 
There are five British species, the two northern forms, P. farinosa Linne and P. scotica 
Hooker, having their leaves smooth and mealy beneath, and the calyx-tube not 
pleated into angular folds ; whilst the Cowslip, Primrose, and Oxlip — so closely 
related as to have been regarded by some botanists as a single species — have their 
leaves wrinkled and toothed but not mealy, and the calyx-tube strongly folded into 
five pleats, so as to present a five-pointed star-like outline if cut across. 
The stem is a short, thick rhizome, dying away so as to leave a truncate or 
praemorse base, its short branches ending in rosettes of radical leaves and a terminal 
stalked umbel of flowers ; but, whilst in the Cowslip (P. veris Linne) and Oxlip 
(P. elatior Jacquin) the peduncle is long and the pedicels of the individual flowers 
are short, in the Primrose (P. vulgaris Hudson) the peduncle is so short that it, and 
the involucre of narrow pallid bracts which surmounts it, are hidden among the 
bases of the leaves, while the pink pedicels are nearly as long as the leaves. Thus 
when we gather Cowslips we pluck a whole umbel ; whilst when we are picking 
Primroses we take each flower separately. 
