Miller Christy 
236 
(Manche), a locality he has known and visited annually for seventeen 
years. During that time, the plant, which bears its flowers in loose 
umbels and occasionally singly, has (he says) maintained its char¬ 
acter. That the plant cannot be a hybrid is proved by the fact that 
Mons. Lebel has never seen a cowslip in the vicinity, the nearest 
locality for it being (he believes) 18 kilometres distant. 
That an ordinary pure-bred acaulescent (single-flowered) prim¬ 
rose plant should produce caulescent (umbellate) flowers must be 
due, of course, to some special cause, and that cause appears to be 
usually some sudden and disturbing change in the plant's conditions 
of growth or abnormality in its environment. As to this, the late 
Rev. E. A. Woodruffe-Peacock wrote 1 : 
I have come to the conclusion, from experiments [? observations] 
in woods and gardens, that the caulescens form of P. vulgaris has 
nothing at all to do with hybridity, but is merely a forced abnormal 
state. [I have observed it, he goes on] only where sudden change 
has taken place, as a fall of trees in woodland or a sudden change 
in garden cultivation. 
I cannot recollect having ever observed that the cutting down 
of a wood containing primroses induces them to produce caulescent 
flowers, though I have seen much in Essex of the effects of that 
process in stimulating the growth and free flowering of the plants; 
but it seems likely that the change in question may be thus produced. 
That the primrose may be induced by cultivation to produce 
caulescent (umbellate) flowers seems certain—is, indeed, commonly 
seen. As long ago as 1790, William Curtis wrote of the primrose 2 
that “the plant, when cultivated, will sometimes throw up a stalk 
similar to that of the Polyanthus; and of this my very good friend 
Dr Buxton, of Greenwich, has favoured me with a striking instance." 
Mr Charles Nicholson writes 3 : 
The umbellate form of the primrose (var. caulescens) is simply 
an example of the lengthening of the peduncle, which is... only 
developed as such occasionally. 
I believe this phenomenon (the caulescent truss) to be commoner 
in some seasons than others, and it is probably regulated by weather 
conditions. At any rate, it is very uncertain in its appearance. 
I have found that plants of this form, when transplanted to the 
garden, have reverted to the ordinary form in the next year. I have 
been told, on the other hand, of ordinary primrose plants having 
1 In a letter, dated October 14, 1910, to Mr Charles Nicholson. 
2 FI. Londin. 6, p. 16, ?• 1790 (see also Withering, Brit. Plants, 2, p. 233, 
1796). 
3 Gardener's Chron. June 18, 1921, p. 301. 
