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caulescens is often applied in error) is the Common or Hybrid Oxlip 
(P. veris x vulgaris ), which, though seldom abundant, is generally 
met with sporadically wherever its two parents, the Cowslip and the 
Primrose, grow in proximity, as they do almost everywhere 1 . Its 
characteristic features are less easy to point out, inasmuch as (owing 
to its hybrid origin) these are very variable. Thus, its flowers, though 
generally produced in umbels, are frequently single (i.e. acaulescent), 
like those of its primrose parent, and both forms of inflorescence 
often appear on the same plant. Even when the flowers are pro¬ 
duced in umbels, those umbels are generally more or less lax and 
straggling, showing little trace of the well-marked one-sided droop 
of the umbel of its cowslip parent. More reliable features are to be 
found in the actual flowers, which are always intermediate in 
character between those of the plant’s two parent species. Thus, the 
widely-inflated calyx of the cowslip is generally, if not always, more, 
or less apparent. Again, the sharp ridge or fold, with notches in it, 
in the throat of the corolla-tube (which is always apparent in the 
flowers of the cowslip) is, I believe, always present. Their colour is a 
fairly-good criterion; for the flowers of the hybrid are never, I 
believe, of the pale yellow colour of the primrose, the deeper yellow 
of the cowslip being always more or less dominant. 
That pure (unhybridised) plants of the primrose bearing their 
flowers in umbels really do occur in the natural state was recognised 
as long ago as 1792, when Thomas Martyn, F.R.S., wrote 2 : “We 
have sometimes met with a primrose in a wild state pushing up a 
scape which sustained several flowers differing in no respect from 
the ordinary sort, except in this circumstance.” Since that time, 
the occurrence of the caulescent variety of the primrose and its 
distinctness from the hybrid between that plant and the cowslip 
has been fully recognised by not a few English botanical writers, 
but overlooked by as many others. The distinctness of the two 
plants has been more generally recognised by French botanists, 
though many of them also have confused the two. Thus, Godron, 
after mentioning 3 that he has met with the variety in France, 
“quoique tres rarement,” adds: “nous distinguons positivement le 
Primula variabilis [i.e. P. veris x vulgaris'] de la forme caulescente du 
Primula grandiflora [= P. vulgaris].” Again, Mons. E. Legue, after 
speaking of the hybrid 4 , says: “il existe bien une forme caulescente 
1 See New Phytologist, 21, p. 299, 1922. 
2 FI. Rustica, p. 62, 1792. 
3 Bull. Soc. Bot. de France, 10, pp. 179-180, 1863. 
4 Idem. 29, p. 133, 1882. 
