
122 ‘(THE FLORIST. 
Brilliant, do. Lobbianum elegans, Neirembergia gracilis, Lobelia 
speciosa, Geranium Lady Plymouth, TIpomea Quamoclit, do. violacea, 
do. coccinea—all of which are more or less trailing im habit, while 
scarlet Geraniums, Calceolarias, Salvias, or Fuchsias, will be found 
useful in filling up the centres. a 
I have thus attempted to lay before you the whole of the information 
I possess upon this most pleasing branch. of horticulture ; and, if any of 
your readers detect omissions, I must claim their indulgence, for it 1s 
difficult to embrace everything in such a paper as this. 
| J. WIGGINS, 
Gardener to E. Beck, Esq., Worton Cottage, Isleworth. 
OUR COMMON PRIMROSE, OXLIP, AND COWSLIP. 
For many years (says Mr. Jordan in the ‘ Phytologist’””) I have 
wandered over their native localities, in woods, meads, and commons, 
far distant from the habitations of mankind. In those places I find 
them undoubtedly as unvarying as when they first appeared by the 
command of the Creator of all things which adorn the- earth’s surface, 
and will continue so until it may please the Creator to establish a new 
order of things. The physical habits of each bespeak a peculiar grga- 
nization, obscured and incomprehensible for the limited faculties of man 
to develope, however acute a physiologist. 
The specification of plants in our present state of botanical knowledge 
is indefinite, and not sufficiently comprehensive to give to many of our 
plants their specific claims; and the nomenclature is in many instances 
not sufficiently significant ; so that some good species are considered 
varieties, and some varieties species. In a numerous tribe of plants, 
frequently many of them are so allied to each other that it requires 
every character and habit of each to be taken into consideration to give 
them their just claims as species, even to a chemical analysis. The 
habits of those three differ as much as their physiognomy. ‘The 
Primrose is decidedly an arboreal, the Cowslip a pastural plant; the 
Oxlip has no predilection for any locality, being but sparingly found 
anywhere: no condition increases its numbers, as it does that of the 
Cowslip. 
By agriculture the Cowslip flourishes ; by agriculture the Primrose 
is destroyed. The Primrose may be seen in flower six months in the 
year, the Oxlip and Cowslip not so many weeks. I have known the 
Primrose’s sylvain domain destroyed, and long furrowed by the plough, 
and then pastured; in time Cowslips began to spring, and continually 
increased, but no Primroses appeared,—only a few that found a refuge 
at the hedge, having escaped the rack and ruin of their ancient 
heritage and race. : 
The Primrose is found in profusion in our woods and copses ; the 
Cowslip and Oxlip are but sparingly found in their native woodland 
glades or commons. They all prefer a stiff, dry, rather poor soil; in 
