British Primula Hybrids 297 
two only. On 4th May 1922, I searched both woods carefully., 
College Wood had, I found, never been cut since I planted the Oxlips 
in it 1 ; and (probably as a result of this) I was unable to discover 
either the Oxlips I had planted or any hybrids arising from them. 
Bush Wood had, I found, been cut a year or two before and had 
grown up again; with the result that here also I was able to discover 
neither my Oxlip plants nor hybrids due to them. 
This Experiment has, therefore, failed—at all events, so far. 
Experiment III. In January 1906, on the suggestion of Mr 
G. A. Boulenger, F.R.S., I sent a number of Primrose roots, obtained 
near Chelmsford (where no Oxlips grow), to Maredsous, in the 
Belgian Ardennes 2 . These Primrose roots were carefully planted by 
the Rev. Dom Beda Lebbe, O.S.B., of the great Abbaye there, on a 
wooded hillside near and belonging to the Abbaye, there being no 
Primroses growing naturally in that part of Belgium, but an 
abundance of Oxlips in the woods and damp meadows all around. 
I saw the plants in April 1910, when they appeared to be flour¬ 
ishing and were flowering freely. Later, however, they languished; 
and Mr Boulenger, who has visited the spot recently, informs me 
that most or all of them have now died out, without producing any 
hybrids 3 . I fancy the position in which they were planted was not 
quite suited to them. 
Thus this Experiment failed completely—not in itself, but 
through a subsidiary cause. 
Nevertheless, the fact that the Oxlip and the Primrose hybridise 
freely in the wild state when growing in close proximity has now 
been demonstrated incontestibly by actual experiment in the field. 
Nor is this at all surprising; for the two species are, though quite 
distinct, so closely allied that Linnaeus and most of the earlier 
botanists regarded them as mere varieties of one variable species. 
Moreover, both flourish in much the same habitats (usually woods, 
but sometimes open meadows) and it is known that both are visited 
and pollinated by the same species of insects—a matter I have 
1 Many woods in the Eastern Counties have remained uncut several years 
beyond the usual time for cutting them, owing to the War, the scarcity and 
dearness of labour, and the small value of brushwood recently. 
2 I had infinite trouble to get them through the Belgian Customs, owing 
to a fear that they might convey the Phylloxera vine disease, which does not 
attack Primroses, from England, where it did not exist, to Belgium, where 
there are no vineyards ! 
3 See also his record of this fact in Comptes Rendus de V A cad. des Sciences, 
170 (Paris, 1920), p. 1298 n. 
