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Cowslips, oxlips and primroses |
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Monday, 19 May 2008 |
The bouquets of yellow dangling clés de
Saint Pierre (keys of St Peter), the
cowslips, decorating every bank and old
pasture, are also known to the French as
coucou or primavère. You see masses of them
in most rural landscapes other than on the acid
peat lands and in the hot dry south. The
English names, derived from cow’s slip or ox
slip (not cow’s lip),
suggest that they
grow on or after the
sloppy droppings of
those creatures.
This is not true.
The cowslip is a
species of Primula.
There are twelve in
France and five in
Britain. Away from
the mountains you
will only find three
(cowslip, primrose
and oxlip). In
Britain, although
primroses are
common enough in
favoured places,
cowslips are usually
rarer. Yet in some
parts of France (eg,
in the Lot and in 18 other départements) there
are cascades of cowslips and no primroses at
all. Some French people have never seen a
wild primrose.
Oxlips, which in England are only found
in East Anglia, exist throughout France except
in the north-west. This species is most like the
primrose in the large size of the flowers, but
these are gathered on a single stem like
cowslips. The leaves also have a tapering
outline like primroses; cowslip leaves are
waisted in the middle.
All species have two forms of the flower,
which in English are called pin and thrum.
The photos show cowslips. To the right is
a ‘pin’ with a pin-headed pistil. On the left is
the ‘thrum’ with five pollen-laden stamens in
the throat, looking
like the cut end of
a twisted thread.
The term comes
from the carpet
trade, where odd
ends of wool are
called ‘thrums’.
The two forms
are not separate
sexes (male and
female). However,
they do have a
reproductive role.
The ‘pin’ has
stamens mounted
on the side of the
petal tube further
down, and the
‘thrum’, with its
stamens near the
opening, has a
short pistil at half length. Pollen adhering to a
long-tongued bee’s proboscis, after a visit to
one form, will be stuck at just the right place
to achieve cross-pollination with the other.
They also have a genetical trick which
inhibits the pollen from growing on the pistil
of its own flower. In the end the seeds
produce a more or less 50/50 scattering of the
two forms.
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Downtime 
