July 1, 1880. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
13 
tant or slightly convergent, and there are five narrow deep yellow 
lines round the throat, forming a five-rayed star. Calyx-tube 
tubular, as long as the tube of the corolla. Leaves like those of 
the Primrose, with winged petioles, and sometimes, like those of 
the Cowslip, with the blade terminating abruptly. 
Some botanists assert that the Oxlip is a mere form of the 
Primrose, and distinguish it as Primula vulgaris var. caulescens ; 
and others hold that it is a hybrid between the Primrose and 
the Cowslip. I at one time was of the latter opinion, being 
very much guided by the views of others and not by facts. Sub¬ 
sequent experience has convinced "me that I and others holding 
that opinion were wrong. I now consider the true Oxlip a per¬ 
fectly good species, a permanently distinct individuality. All 
that has been said and written about it being a hybrid is mere 
conjecture. I have never known nor heard of anyone who has 
hybridised the Primrose and the Cowslip and thereby obtained 
an Oxlip or anything else. My excellent friend Col. E. Trevor 
Clarke, than whom there is no more skilful hybridiser or more 
careful observer, has stated over and over that he has failed to 
cross either of them with the pollen of the other. If, then, after 
careful manipulation they refuse to intercross by artificial means, 
what reason is there for supposing that fertilisation takes place 
naturally ? There are no conditions in their natural state which 
cannot be secured in a state of cultivation ; and after all efforts 
have failed to cross them artificially, I am led to the conclusion 
that the Oxlip is not a hybrid obtained between the Primrose and 
the Oxlip, but is rather a form produced by organic development 
in the same way as other new forms are produced in plants by 
bud variation and other processes of dimorphism or evolution of 
the parts, and of the origin and cause of which we are as yet 
ignorant. rT i 
In the third edition of the “British Flora” Sir W. J. Hooker 
is decided in the opinion that all three plants—the Primrose, the 
Cowslip, and the Oxlip, are quite distinct. He says, “ Few plants 
can be more constant to characters here laid down than these are 
as generally seen growing in their wild stations. I hey rarely 
are found intermixed, and in Scotland the two last kinds are 
scarcely known.” It is true Professor Henslow had stated that 
