THE PRIMULE AND THEIR CONGENERS, BY THE EDITOR. "Amid the sunny luxury of grass Are tufts of pale-eyed primroses, entwined "How cheerful along the gay mead APRIL, Sweet, shy, beaming April, with its smiles and tears, its fitful sunshine, and its dropping rains, is come to cheer us again with news of the long, fair summer days that are near at hand. Once more we hear the joyous lay of the soaring lark ringing through the blue, soft, smiling sky, all dappled with fleecy clouds, and bright with golden beams! Now blow soft, balmy breezes; for, behold, God "quieteth the earth by the south wind," and our hearts rejoice within us, because we know that "the winter is past and gone, and the flowers appear on the earth, and the time of the singing of birds is come;" and though we hear not commonly the voice of the turtle in our land, yet from every mead and springing pasture-ground, the bleat of the young lambs sounds pleasantly and musically on ears that have listened erewhile to the whistling of wintry winds, and the roaring of the tempests, among the hills and valleys and budding woodlands of our own fair England; fair now as a virgin princess clad in robes of softest, tenderest hue, and wearing on her maiden brow a coronal of brightest gems, that sparkle in the happy sunshine, glancing and shimmering with a purer lustre than the costliest diamond rays, as she wreaths among her jewels the delicate blooms and the pale but exquisite green foliage of the smiling spring. Since last month our Flora has grown much more extensive, and we can only chat together about some of the flowers of April; so first of all let us have a little talk about the Primule, and see if we cannot recal some pleasant associations connected with primroses and cowslips, those bonnie gems of April, and of May also; for they bloom on till quite the middle of the month succeeding. The Primule (in the Linnæan system Pentandria monogynia; and according to the natural classification, of the family Primulaceae, in the division Corolliflora), boasts of five British species: First, the Primula vulgaris, or common primrose, which every child knows. It has of course five stamens and one pistil; the corolla is wheel or salver-shaped, and is monopetalous, that is to say, it is all in one piece, and not consisting of separate petals, as the rose, the snowdrop, the violet, &c. Its tube is cylindrical, and its flowers are of a pale, delicate sulphur yellow, having a faint but agreeable odour. The leaves are toothed and deeply wrinkled, and generally of a clear and vivid green; the calyx is of a light, yellowish-green, and like the blossom, monosepalous, or one sepaled in its structure; and these characteristics are for the most part to observed in every member of the Primula family. be The Primula vulgaris is an universal favourite; children are delighted to carry home a handful of the sweet spring blossom; the invalid welcomes their gentle beauty in his lonely chamber; the poor prisoner, touching, perchance with his lips, their cool, soft petals, longs to tread once more the free green sward, and roam at his own free will amid the primrose haunts again. The painter loves to depict their starry blooms and crinkled leaves, and the poet never seems weary of singing their praises. Mrs. Hemans, in her Voice of Spring," says "I come! I come! ye have called me long I come o'er the mountains with light and song! "In dewy glades "Through primrose-tufts in that sweet bower And of course every one knows the same "The primrose by the river's brim Nor must we forget our revered Milton, "The flowery May That from the green lap throws The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.' No grazing animal, except the pig, will eat either the leaves or the blossoms of the primrose; the former are left for our own satisfaction, the latter for the industrious bee. Some botanists affirm that both cows and sheep occasionally eat them; but their the rule; but it is said, though I know doing so is certainly the exception and not not with how much truth, that silkworms may be fed upon the leaves; and Gerarde, an old herbalist of Queen Elizabeth's day, tells us that from the dried roots, taken up in autumn, "a strong and safe emetic" may be obtained. Thanks to homoeopathy, and to the increasing sense of allopathists, emetics are not so extensively patronised as in the days gone by. Dr. Spencer Thompson, in his charming little work, "Wild Flowers, How to See and How to Gather Them," informs us that he has seen a receipt for a primrose pudding; what can it be like, I wonder? Womanly curiosity alone would make one wish to taste it. Secondly, the Primula veris, or common cowslip. The stalk of this species is many flowered, and not solitary, like the primrose, and the leaf-stalk is sometimes longer than the leaves themselves, which is never the case with P. vulgaris. The blossom is of a full-yellow, with an orange blotch at the base of each segment; it is contracted about the middle of the tube, where the stamens are inserted. The flower appears in April and even in March, but it is seldom plentiful till towards the close of the latter month, and we find it often in great pro women call them, are quite an article of trade, for they are sold at 1s. 6d. per peck, and are extensively used by good housewives in making that very innocent and refreshing beverage, cowslip wine; mixed with an equal quantity of water, cowslip wine makes a cooling drink in measles, and other infantine disorders. The French call the cowslip herbe de la paralysie, and it used to be called in England "palsyin old time by medical practitioners. wort, so that it was doubtless employed Also, an ointment may be prepared from the leaves to remove tan and freckles from the sunburnt complexion. Cowslip-tea year or two ago I was invited to a grand is always a great delight to children; a cowslip-tea party, which took place on a May afternoon, under the lilacs and laburnums. The young people poured boiling water over the " pips," which they had previously half-dried, then they The first sip or so was all very well; but added sugar and a slight flavour of lemon. only juvenile palates can properly appre ciate the delicate aroma of cowslip-tea; it is rather an infliction to people well on in their teens to drain a full cup, diminutive though it may be. As for cowslip-balls, making of one; of course you all under I pity the person who cannot enjoy the stand the process? but lest any hapless child of the city should be in mournful but involuntary ignorance, I will give the proper directions:-Take a piece of string clusters of cowslips astride on the string, and tie it between two chair-backs; place and when you have enough, tie up the ends tight, and your ball, cool, soft, brightcoloured, and delicately perfumed is fait accompli. 66 un cowslips, I forget whether in the "Mid- "The cowslips tall her pensioners be, Clare also apostrophises them— "Bowing adorers of the gale, Upraise your loaded stems; The third member of the Primula family fusion during the early weeks of May. is the Primula elatior, or oxlip. This Cowslip-blooms, or "pips," as the country flower is comparatively rare in its wild state; it frequents bushy places. Some crumble to dust at the slightest touch. botanists consider it a hybrid, or cross About thirteen years ago some acres of the between the primrose and cowslip, rather peaty-ground shelved off into the lake and than a distinct species. Like the primrose entirely disappeared. The legend of the in colour, it resembles the cowslip in form place is, that here a village once flourished and in its many fruited stalks. The clusters and was swallowed up by an earthquake and the blossoms themselves, however, are at a very remote period of time; a very considerably larger than those of the probable story, since the whole state of the P. veris. The leaf stalks are shorter than country gives evidence of terrific convulthe leaves; the leaves also resembling in sions in ages long since past away. About character those of the two former species. a furlong from the tarn is another still I do not know that it is used for any medi- smaller pool, called "Little Hayswater," cinal purpose; nor has it so many professed" and here," says the legend, "the parish admirers as the cowslip and the primrose; still two poets of renown have not disdained to introduce it to their verses. Shakespeare himself writes you must be familiar with the lines "I know a bank where the wild thyme grows, Where oxlip and the nodding violet blows." And Tennyson, our dearly-beloved and well-esteemed laureate, in his poem of "The Talking Oak," says, referring to a sister and brother: "As cowslip unto oxlip is, church once stood, and on clear days you may see the spire, hundreds of fathoms down!" We should recommend our friends not to go looking for this submerged temple, for this tarn is also unfathomable, and the ground around it treacherous in the extreme. Beautiful water-lilies, however, float on the surface of the dark, sullen, yet perfectly limpid pool; and loveliest wild flowers bloom near it in rich profusion, especially the violet-like "butterwort," the very elegant "Upright St. John's Wort," the "rosy valerian," and above all, So seems she to the boy." from the end of May to the beginning of Fourthly, the Primula farinosa, or July, the beautiful lilac-pink. Primula bird's-eye primrose. A very lovely specimen farinosa, growing in clusters in the boggy, of a lovely genus, and altogether unlike peaty soil, mingling its mealy leaves with the Primule we have already been discus- the bright yellow-green, succulent foliage sing. Its leaves are small, smooth, and of the Pinguicula vulgaris, or common finely-toothed, and both they and the stem butterwort. Last summer my sister and I, are covered with a white powder, something botanising in the neighbourhood, which is like that on the garden auricula; the leaves one of the wildest, and at the same time are mealy underneath. The flowers are the loveliest I know, were told, on the small, and of a beautiful rosy-lilac; they authority of "the oldest inhabitant," that are arranged in clusters, like the garden"Big Hayswater had no bottom; but Little verbena, for which, indeed, to an unin-Hayswater was deeper still!" structed observer, they might be mistaken Fifthly, the Primula Scotica, or Scotch as having run wild and changed the colour primrose. It is much smaller than the of their corollas. The P. farinosa grows P. farinosa, and its blossoms are of a deep only in bogs and marshes, particularly in purple, sometimes reddish, with yellow peat lands, among the mountains of the centres. Like the bird's-eye primrose, north of England. I know of one of its its leaves are finely-toothed and mealy. It most lovely habitats: a wild, boggy peat-grows chiefly on the sea-coast in the north pasture, under grey cliffs of strange fantastic of Scotland. I have never gathered a speshapes, shut in also by swelling rocky cimen myself, though I have the good uplands and wooded siopes; the centre fortune to possess one, presented by a celeof the valley is occupied by a tarn, or small brated naturalist, whom I have the honour lake, encompassed by a treacherous white to call my friend. shore, where quicksands are ready to Here ends the enumeration of the species swallow up the unwary. "Hayswater-the of British Primula; but the auricula also name of the tiny lake has altogether a very is of the same family, and the polyanthus; indifferent reputation: in the first place, it and the Auricula primula was long known is, or is supposed to be, unfathomable, and as the mountain or French cowslip. is certainly at times affected by the tide at blooms above the snows of the Alpine several miles distance; the calcareous sub-regions of Italy, Switzerland, and Gerstance which gleams like snowy sands many, and is either of a beautiful deep round the dark and solemn waters is com- purple, or purplish-red, or a full yellow; posed of millions of tiny shells, which it is scattered over with a mealy powder, It and is sometimes, but not often, variegated in its hue. It is the original of our garden auricula, with all its spendid varieties "See, Its leaves are bright green, glossy, and heart-shaped; it has no visible calyx. Altogether it is a very handsome flower, and a great ornament at this season to our marshy meadows. It has been supposed that the extreme yellowness of butter in the vulgar error; for cows, unless compelled spring is owing to this plant; but this is a by extreme hunger, will not touch it, and then it is almost sure to cause illness, and sometimes fatal inflammation. All the Ranunculaceae are more or less acrid and poisonous, and children should not be allowed to gather them unwatched. Even the innocent-looking buttercup is not to be too freely handled; for the flowers, if chewed, excite distressing vomiting and burning sensations, and the bruised leaves act on the skin much after the fashion of a mustard-plaister. The Ranunculacea may be distinguished from the Rosacea, which are generally wholesome, and to which many of our autumn fruits belong, by the presence or absence of the calyx. The Rosacea retains its calyx till the flower falls, and even then adorns the ripening fruit; for the small substance we find on the heads of apples and pears is nothing more or less than the remains of the calyx shrunken up and hardened by age. In the Ranunculacea, the calyx commonly falls ere the petals expand; hence we say, such and such a flower family has no calyx, as indeed it has not, in its perfectly expanded state. The petals of the Caltha palustris, boiled with alum, make a good yellow dye for paper. Of the same order also are the Hellebores, of which we have two British species-the Helleborus viridis, or green hellebore, and the H. Fatidus, or stinking green hellebore has no petals, but a leafy hellebore; both are now in blossom. The petal-like calyx, which is an exception to the reed is ripe, possibly to supply the the rule of the family, for it remains till place of a real corolla, which is entirely hand-shaped, and deeply serrated. able wanting. The leaves are dark, glossy, smell, and its green calyx-flower is tinged stinking hellebore has a disagreeable golden blossoms of the marsh-marigold! lofty; both of them delight in woods and Yes, very brilliant are the large, deep, a yard high, but the H. Viridis is less with purple at the edges. It is sometimes You always find it in low, swampy situa- shady places, on chalky soils; and both st tions; it has five, or occasionally seven much resemble the garden hellebore, or petals, and many stamens, and many pis-Christmas rose, with its brilliant white tils, hence placed by Withering in his calyx, that the family likeness may be Linnæan arrangement in class Polyandria. detected even by a casual observer. and order Polygynia. The natural sys Where arrayed in sporting dust and velvet pride, So much for the Primulacea. Let us wavy bowers, And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint, sweet cuckoo flowers, And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows gray, be queen of the May." tem ranges it among plants of the Ranun- might enumerate, but this paper must be There are many other April blossoms we brought to a conclusion. Only let me beg culacea order. for leats, p. 260, first column, 36th line, read leafits; and a little lower down, for Violaca, read Violaceæ. you to gather and admire the pretty hyacinth, already decorating our woodlabiate, Glechoma hederacea, or ground-lands, will next month blossom in richest ivy or gill. You may know it directly profusion; and the turquoise-like Veronica, by its lavender-blue, lip-shaped flowers, even now shining out with its eye of heaand by the aromatic scent of its scalloped venly blue under every way-side hedgeheart or kidney-shaped leaves. It grows row, will be in all its glory. Till the under nearly every hedge, and blossoms in month of May, then, we must postpone the April and May. Neither must you over- consideration of these lovely and familiar look the lovely wood sorrel (Oxalis aceto- flowers. sella), with its trefoil-leaves and its delicate white flowers, with petals purple-veined. NOTE.-In the paper entitled "The The leaves are of a most vivid and tender Violet and its Contemporaries," in last green, and are supposed to be the true month's magazine, I stated that the violet Shamrock of St. Patrick. They continue was not employed by homoeopathic practo beautify the mossy ground of the shady titioners. I was, however, partly in error, woodlands all through the summer; but since a medical friend assures me that the now or never must you seek the finely-" Viola tricolor," or wild pansy, has for pencilled, drooping blossom. It grows some time past been enrolled in the cataespecially round the mossy roots of old logue of orthodox homeopathic remedies. trees, and seems allied in some degree to In the same article occur two mis-prints: the sensitive plants of warmer regions, since it closes and droops its light green ternate leaves at the approach of evening, and compresses them at the first approach of rain. In Lapland the natives eat it as a regular vegetable, and it is still much used on the Continent in certain sauces of repute. This acid is agreeable, but no one should indulge in it freely, since certain poisonous elements are contained therein. From its leaves oxalid acid is extracted; 20 lbs. of the fresh leaves yielding about 6 lbs. of juice, from which may be obtained about 3 ozs. of the bin-oxalate of potash, or essential salt of lemons, as it is familiarly called, so useful for taking ink-stains out of linen. The generic name Oralis is derived from the Greek orys-sour, and ala -salt, an acrid salt; and the specific title acestosella has the same meaning, only of Latin derivation-acetum, sour, and sal, salt. Gerarde says it was called "Alleluya,” a nearly obsolete name now; because at the time of its appearing "the Alleluya" was sung in churches; but modern botanists of authority have decided that the word is a mere corruption of its Italian name "Juliola." It is, or was, also called cuckoo bread, or "cuckowe's meate," because the cuckoo, newly arrived, was imagined to feed thereon. The juice, diluted with milk, is still used in rural districts as a febrifuge; in Russia it is commonly so employed. "FOLLY, once become national, is a vigorous plant, which sheds abundant seed." We might also mention the Prunus spinosa, common blackthorn, or sloeblossom, and the perennial, or dog mercury, with its harsh leaves, and male and female flowers on separate plants. But these and many others must be omitted, or left to future opportunity. The wild WINE.-"The adulteration of wine is a shameful and pernicious practice, and deserves the severest censure; for should a poor, sick person, from the scanty pittance of his labour, purchase a little wine to revive his drooping spirits and recruit his failing strength, instead of experiencing the desired effect, he would find himself worse, and his disorder aggravated; because wine adulterated, perhaps with pernicious spirits, operates like poison, and instead of promoting health, may ultimately terminate in death. Such is the scandalous consequence of adulterating wine. Yet even worse is that deplorable abuse of it by which men poison themselves! This liquor is a useful and salutary medicine, which supports animal life, and diffuses the vital spirits through the frame; but the continual or excessive use of wine destroys its beneficial effects. Like dung to a tree, so is this liquor to the human body; it forwards the fruit, but injures the tree! As a wise gardener, therefore, only applies his manure at proper seasons, and in due proportions, as nature and constitution require, thus, also, should we use wine. Let us always remember it is only given to recruit or refresh our spirits, and therefore never let us abuse a blessing given by that divine goodness, who is the Father of mercies, and the giver of every good and perfect gift.”— Sturm. |