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PRIMULA VULGARIS VAR. CAULESCENS 
By MILLER CHRISTY, F.L.S. 
I N a recent paper on the British Hybrid Primulas, I stated 1 that 
the "Common,” “False,” or “Hybrid” Oxlip (P. veris x vulgaris) 
had been known, among other names, as P. vulgaris var. caulescens 2 . 
This statement was correct so far as it went, but I should have 
added that it was correct only because the hybrid in question has 
been confused persistently with another plant—similar, but quite 
distinct—to which the name in question rightly belongs. That other 
plant is a variety {not a hybrid) of the Common Primrose (P. vulgaris) 
and is met with occasionally wherever that plant occurs. 
The resemblance between the two plants is sufficiently close to 
account for their having been frequently confused. I myself had 
been for years quite familiar with both before I clearly realised that 
they were essentially distinct. Yet the points of difference between 
them, though slight, are, when once recognised, sufficiently marked 
to enable anyone who has the two plants before him in the fresh 
state to discriminate between them with little or no difficulty 3 . 
The variety (to which, as stated, the name P. vulgaris var. 
caulescens rightly belongs) may be recognised by the fact that, 
though its flowers are borne in umbels, they are in all other respects 
of the pure Primrose type, having the tight-fitting calyx, the flat 
corolla-limb, and the pale yellow corolla, which are characteristic of 
that plant. Another feature of the variety is that its umbel is often 
irregular (some of the pedicels branching from the side of the pe¬ 
duncle, near its top, instead of all together from its top), and is always 
more or less lax and straggling, with a short peduncle and long 
pedicels. 
The hybrid (to which, as stated, the name P. vulgaris var. 
1 See New Phytolo'gist, 21, p. 299, 1922. 
2 The name is that of Koch ( Synops . FI. Germ, et Helvet. p. 587, 1837). 
3 This cannot be said of them, however, when in the dried state. Indeed, 
I doubt if anyone could discriminate between them with certainty when dried; 
for their leaf-characters are too indefinite to afford reliable guidance, even when 
fresh, and their distinctive floral characters, including the colour, are almost 
completely obliterated by drying. 
