On the Species of the Genus Primula in Essex. 193
calyx-tube. In 1881 the calyxes of several flowers on a
plant that usually produces normal flowers continued to
develop into leaves about 11/2 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