Primula vulgaris var. caulescens 235 
du P. vulgaris, mais elle est tres rare et je l’ai toujours vue a la 
hampe tres courte et les pedicelles tres allongues 1 .” 
One strong proof that the caulescent or umbellate variety of the 
primrose is not due to any crossing with the umbellate cowslip is to 
be found in the fact that the variety occurs in districts from which 
the cowslip is absent; so that there can be no possibility of hybridisa¬ 
tion. 
Thus, my friend the late Mr E. A. Fitch, of Maldon, Essex, 
when sending me, in April, 1905, specimens of the caulescent prim¬ 
rose which he had found in Hazeleigh Wood, near that town, re¬ 
marked that their umbellate flowers could not be ascribed to 
hybridisation with the cowslip, inasmuch as no cowslips were growing 
(he believed) nearer than a certain Paigle Mead, in Woodham Walter 
parish, quite two miles and a half distant—indeed (he added), as far 
as he knew, there were no cowslips in the whole Essex Hundred 
of Dengey, the soil of which, being almost exclusively London 
Clay, lacks the lime which the calciphile cowslip demands. Similar 
evidence is forthcoming from France. Mons. Aug. le Jolis, of Cher¬ 
bourg, says 2 that he has never met with the hybrid oxlip (P. veris 
x vulgaris) in his neighbourhood 3 , from which both cowslip and 
(true) oxlip are absent, but he says he has met with the caulescent 
variety of the primrose at Urville and at Octeville, adding “j’y ai 
observe souvent des formes ou la hampe etait accompagnee de 
pedoncules radicaux uniflores/’ Again Mons. E. Lebel has described 4 
specimens of the variety which grows with primroses of the normal 
form among mowing-grass on the slope of a sea-cliff at Lestre 
1 It should be noted that the caulescent variety of the primrose described 
above is usually much nearer to, and more difficult to distinguish from, the 
hybrid between the oxlip and the primrose (P. elatior x vulgaris) see ante, 
p. 234) than from the hybrid between the cowslip and the primrose (P. veris x 
vulgaris). Indeed, the two are scarcely to be distinguished, except by a critical 
botanist who has seen both actually growing. The oxlip x primrose hybrid, 
like the cowslip x primrose hybrid, bears its flowers both singly and in 
umbels (both forms of inflorescence frequently appearing on the same root, as 
might be expected in view of the plant’s parentage), and these flowers are 
always of a pale yellow (the colour of both its parents). Its most pronounced 
points of difference from the caulescent primrose are that its umbels are even 
more loose and straggling; the peduncle is usually very short; and both it and 
the pedicels are very hirsute. The oxlip x primrose hybrid is, however, very 
scarce in Britain, being met with only where the two parent species come into 
contact on the extreme margin of the limited area in the eastern counties to 
which the oxlip is confined. 
2 See Mem. Soc. Sci. Nat. de Cherbourg, 7, p. 312, i860; also Bull. Soc. 
Bot. de France, 8, p. 629, 1861. 
3 He speaks of it as P. variabilis Goupil, its usual name in France. 
4 Bull. Soc. Bot. de France, 11, pp. 88-91, 1864. 
