peduncle, and flowers) with my six plants, excepting that the flowers of the
latter were tinged of a dingy red colour, from being descended from the
polyanthus.

We thus see that the cowslip and primrose cannot be crossed either way except
with considerable difficulty, that they differ conspicuously in external
appearance, that they differ in various physiological characters, that they
inhabit slightly different stations and range differently. Hence those botanists
who rank these plants as varieties ought to be able to prove that they are not
as well fixed in character as are most species; and the evidence in favour of
such instability of character appears at first sight very strong. It rests,
first, on statements made by several competent observers that they have raised
cowslips, primroses, and oxlips from seeds of the same plant; and, secondly, on
the frequent occurrence in a state of nature of plants presenting every
intermediate gradation between the cowslip and primrose.

The first statement, however, is of little value; for, heterostylism not being
formerly understood, the seed-bearing plants were in no instance protected from
the visits of insects (2/7. One author states in the 'Phytologist' volume 3 page
703 that he covered with bell-glasses some cowslips, primroses, etc., on which
he experimented. He specifies all the details of his experiment, but does not
say that he artificially fertilised his plants; yet he obtained an abundance of
seed, which is simply impossible. Hence there must have been some strange error
in these experiments, which may be passed over as valueless.); and there would
be almost as much risk of an isolated cowslip, or of several cowslips if
consisting of the same form, being crossed by a neighbouring primrose and
producing oxlips, as of one sex of a dioecious plant, under similar
circumstances, being crossed by the opposite sex of an allied and neighbouring
species. Mr. H.C. Watson, a critical and most careful observer, made many
experiments by sowing the seeds of cowslips and of various kinds of oxlips, and