On the Species of the Genus Primula in Essex. 
198 
calyx-tube. In 1881 the calyxes of several flowers on a 
plant that usually produces normal flowers continued to 
develop into leaves about 1 \ in. long, after the corolla had 
withered some weeks. My friend Mr. P. Sewell, of York, has 
sent me specimens of flowers having the corolla foliated 
exactly as the calyx so often is. The plant bearing these 
was originally found wild in Ireland. I believe this is a rare 
aberration. 
It is not my intention here to speak of the numerous 
forms which this species assumes under cultivation ; but I 
may describe the strange conduct of one plant that grew in 
my garden at Chignal, and produced all through the autumn 
of 1879 flowers which were normal in all respects, except 
that they were red and had a calyx of five small leaves each 
about one inch long. By the middle of the following May 
the blooms were few in number, and changed in nature, the 
calyx-leaves being then smaller and shorter. The central 
part of each was still green like a leaf, but down each side 
was a wing or strip half as broad as the green part, which 
was smooth and coloured like the petals, so that the flowers 
were evidently inclining towards the “Hose-in-Hose” variety. 
The following autumn, if my memory serves me, the flowers 
bore ordinary leafy calyxes. Polyanthuses with a parti¬ 
coloured calyx may sometimes be seen in gardens, but I do 
not know that they ever change their nature. 
As is also the case with the Cowslip and Oxlip, the corolla 
withers up, but remains on the plant for a long time. The 
capsules differ in their shape and habit from those of the 
other species, being much shorter and rounder, and prostrate 
instead of erect. They lie down upon the ground when 
mature, and it is possible that this may be the means adopted 
by the plant for sowing its own seed, as I have sometimes 
seen the capsules quite covered up by worm-casts. The dead 
capsules do not, I believe, remain on the plant until the follow¬ 
ing year, as is the case with most other species of Primula . 
All gardeners know how persistent sparrows are in pulling 
off the Primrose-petals for some reason best known to them¬ 
selves. Sparrows, however, are not the only delinquents, as 
