On the Species op the Genus Primula in Essex. 191 
the lower ones ; so that the former have often done flowering, 
and their ovaries have already swelled to the size of a 
No. 1 shot, 42 while the latter are scarcely open. The top 
flotveis, too, are, I believe, the most fertile, often producing 
seed under difficulties when the rest are barren. 
^ IN General Observations upon the Natural History of 
the Three Essex Species of Primula. 
The three species differ materially in the situations which 
they inhabit, the time of year at which they flower, and the 
insects by which they are fertilized. 
The Primrose prefers to grow in woods,—often thickly 
grown-up ones,—but is also very commonly seen in ditches, 
on banks, 01 sometimes out among the grass of meadows 
in moist shady places. When the woods in which it grows 
are cut down, I have never noticed that it is at all unusually 
stimulated in growth (as is so commonly the case with the 
Oxlip), unless the form designated the Pmbellate Primrose 
be attributable to this cause. The districts in Essex in¬ 
habited by the Primrose are often not those inhabited by the 
Cowslip, and on the Continent the species seem to occupy 
altogether different regions. 
klanj authors state that the flowers even of the pure 
Primiose are borne in a u sessile umbel,’ or one without a 
peduncle or scape; but it seems to me that with pure plants 
this is seldom obvious; and Mr. Darwin states (‘ Forms of 
Floweis, p. /0) that "no trace of it can be found in the pure 
Piimiose. It is difficult to determine the season in which 
the Primrose flowers ; a mild autumn, and sometimes even 
a mild winter, will bring them into flower, and cultivated 
specimens sometimes bloom all the year round. I have many 
records of Primroses blossoming in December and January, 
both wild and in gardens. On December 23rd, 1876. and 
October 2nd, 1882, I saw them out abundantly (the weather 
being mild) in two woods which had both been cut down the 
previous winter. After the severe winter of 1879-80, how- 
42 The corolla does not fall off, as in some Primulas, but the ovary in 
growing stretches it at the bottom. 
