66 THE ASSOCIATIONS OF FLOWERS 
and it probably received its name from its soft velvety 
texture resembling that of a lip. The country people 
in some parts of Kent call it fairy-cup. 
In the midland and southern counties of England, a 
sweet and pleasant wine, in flavour resembling the 
Muscadel, is made from the cowslip flower, and it is one 
of the most wholesome and pleasant of home-made wines, 
and slightly narcotic in its effects. In times when Eng- 
lish wines were more used, every housewife in Warwick- 
shire could produce her clear cowslip wine, and many a 
maiden could say of this, as did Christabel of her wild- 
flower drink, — 
“ It is a wine of virtuous powers. 
My mother made it of wild flowers.’’ 
The cowslip is still sold in many markets for this pur- 
pose, and little cottage-girls still ramble the meadows 
during April and May in search of it. Silkworms may 
be fed upon the foliage, and are said to thrive as well as 
on the leaves of the mulberry: country people use it as 
a salad, or boil it for the table. 
The primrose is the type of the natural order called 
by botanists Primulaceae, which consists of a number of 
lowly but very beautiful plants, the flowers of which are 
chiefly pale coloured, though occasionally of a deep hue. 
In some of the orders, in which plants are classed upon 
the natural system, the general appearance is so similar, 
as that if one plant is known, the rest are recognised 
immediately, as belonging to the same order. Thus the 
leguminous tribe may be known by their pea-shaped 
blossoms, and their seed-vessels formed of a pod ; and 
the labiate tribe always bear flowers shaped like those of 
the thyme and rosemary; but the primrose order does 
not exhibit marks so obvious to general observers. The 
scarlet pimpernel of the fields, and the yellow pimpernel 
of the woods ; the water-violet, which raises its purple 
and white flowers above the stream ; the cyclamen, whose 
white blossoms often grace our parlours in early spring ; 
the American cowslip, and the pretty and rare chickweed 
winter green, which was a favourite plant with Linnaeus, 
— are all included, with many others, in the primrose 
order. 
