On the Species of the Genus Primula in Essex. 169 
plants are generally 1. leads one to the belief that they and 
their seeds have a greater constitutional vigour than the s., 
which are thus easily eliminated in the ‘‘struggle for 
existence.” It seems as if the s. plants produced seed in 
greater quantity, while the 1. plants prefer a better quality. 
If only Mr. Darwin were yet alive we might have had one of 
his keen speculations on this interesting subject. Speculation 
alone, however, could never decide the question. Nothing 
hut observation and experiment can do so. 25 * 
I have promised to recur to those Primulas in which the 
1. plants produced the most seed. Mr. Darwin showed 26 that 
with nearly all Primulas the 1. flowers are considerably the 
most fertile when illegitimately fertilized; when he protected 
the flowers of primroses from insects the 1. were considerably 
the most fertile, though this did not apply to the Cowslip. 
It seems then as if the 1. plants when under difficulties have 
an advantage over the s. plants by reason of the better quality 
of them seed-producing powers. Hence, perhaps, it may be 
that in some of the plants whose seed I counted, and which 
it is certain had never been properly fertilized, the 1. produced 
most seed, contrary to what would have been the case under 
favourable circumstances. 
V. —Distribution of the Various Species of Primula in 
Essex. 
Primrose. —The following localities are given in the ‘Flora 
of Essex’ 27 :— 
“(1) Chesterford, Quendon, &c., hut not common around 
Walden; Dunmow, plentiful; (2) Halstead, abundant; Pan¬ 
field; (3) between Dunmow and Chelmsford; (4) Stratford, 
Woodford, common; Epping; (5) Warley and Brentwood, 
frequent ; (6) Rockford and Maldon District, Southend; 
(7) Kelvedon; (8) Dedham, Harwich. /3. caulescens, Curt. 
Loud., 4, 9; (1) Quendon Wood; (2) Roxwell. This is 
often mistaken for P. elatior .” 
25 * [See footnote on this subject in § VII. under P. elatior. — Ed.] 
26 ‘Forms of Flowers,’ p. 48. 
27 ‘ The Flora of Essex.’ By G. S. Gibson, F.L.S.; London, 1862, 
p. 247. 
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