188 On the Species of the Genus Primula in Essex. 
until they were nearly over last year that the time to find them 
was very early. 41 I have never myself observed similar flowers 
on the Cowslip (when pure) or on Primula farinosa; buYMr. 
Clark, of York, has informed me that he remembers meeting 
with single-flowered cowslips many years ago at Street. I am 
sure, however, that they are extremely rare. I have sometimes, 
in various species of Primula , seen a single flower on a jointed 
stalk, but in this case I regarded it as belonging to an umbel 
the rest of which had not been developed; in other words, 
the peduncle supported a single pedicel only. With these 
solitary flowers of P. elatior , however, the case is different. 
They were on jointless stalks, generally about 3 inches long, 
exactly as in the Primrose. I have already stated that these 
flowers are very liable to become abnormal; and it is strange 
that they are very often subject to one most marked variation, 
and rarely to several minor variations, which I have never 
on any occasion observed the flowers to be subject to when 
growing in an umbel. I refer to what may be called the 
leafy or foliated calyx. This, in the case of these solitary 
flowers, appears so commonly that I should think nearly half 
of them show it more or less. Sometimes the edges of the 
calyx-teeth merely become green and wrinkled, but oftener 
are developed into complete little leaves half an inch long or 
more, and extending above the petals; while on several 
41 In 1881 I noticed the first plant bearing them on March 17th, and 
several more on April 6th,—a late season,—but they seem to have dis¬ 
appeared soon after. In 1882 I noticed the first plant as early as 
February 12th (flowers not quite open ; very early season, however). On 
March 12th, in Monk’s Hall Wood, I noticed at least twenty-five or thirty 
such plants among a great number of others just on the verge of coming 
out. On the 15th, however, I was astonished at the number I saw in 
Pounce Wood. The Oxlips were just on the point of coming into flower 
abundantly, and, after searching for plants bearing these solitary flowers, 
I believe that at the very lowest computation I saw fifty of them. On the 
24th and 26th nothing like as many of these were noticeable; on the 
28tli I saw only two, on the 29th one only, and after that, though many 
thousands of plants passed under my eyes, I only saw one or two. On 
March 21st, 1888, nearly all the flowers I could find open in one wood 
were solitary ones, but on the 23rd of the following month at the same 
spot I could not detect a single example. 
