PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
245 
roses as “pin-eyed” and “thrum-eyed.” It is perhaps owing 
to this dimorphism that the family is able to show a very large 
number of natural hybrids. These have been carefully studied 
by Professor Kerner, of Innspruck, and it seems not unlikely 
that a further study will show that all the European so-called 
species are natural hybrids from a very few parents. 
Yet a few words on the Primrose as a garden plant. If the 
Primrose be taken from the hedges in November, and planted 
in beds thickly in the garden, they make a beautiful display of 
flowers and foliage from February till the beds are required for 
the summer flowers; and there are few of our wild flowers that 
run into so many varieties in their wild state. In Pembroke¬ 
shire and Cardiganshire I have seen the wild Primrose of 
nearly all shades of colour, from the purest white to an almost 
bright red, and these can all be brought into the garden with a 
certainty of success and a certainty of rapid increase. There 
are also many double varieties, all of which are more often 
seen in cottage gardens than elsewhere; yet no gardener need 
despise them. 
One other British Primrose, the Bird’s-eye Primrose, almost 
defies garden cultivation, though in its native habitats in the 
north it grows in most ungenial places. I have seen places in 
the neighbourhood of the bleak hill of Ingleborough, where it 
almost forms the turf; yet away from its native habitat it is 
difficult to keep, except in a greenhouse. For the cultivation 
of the other non-English species, I cannot do better than refer 
to an excellent paper by Mr. Niven in “The Garden” for 
January 29, 1876, in which he gives an exhaustive account 
of them. 
I am not aware that Primroses are of any use in medicine or 
cookery, yet Tusser names the Primrose amongst “ seeds and 
herbs for the kitchen,”and Lyte says, “the Cowslips, Primroses, 
and Oxlips are now used dayly amongst other pot herbes, but in 
physicke there is no great account made of them.” They 
occur in heraldry. The arms of the Earls of Rosebery (Prim¬ 
rose) are three Primroses within a double tressure fleury 
counter-fleury, or. 
