Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/761

Rh P R I--P R I 737 The history of primogeniture as applied to feudal suc cession is simpler than that of the inheritance of the crown. When a fief was regarded not strietly as an estate in land but rather as being in the nature of an office there was at first no room for the notion of its descent to an heir. Held first at will and afterwards for short fixed periods, the fiefs or benefices came gradually to be regarded as inheritances. When this idea was first established the fief was usually treated as being partible among all the sons, and it was not until 1138 that Frederick Barbarossa, for reasons of public policy, forbade the greater tenancies to be sub divided. The Assises de Jerusalem had laid down the same rule in 1099, though the king was then allowed to select any one of the children for succession. &quot;In Brittany, primogeniture was not introduced till 1185, even for nobles and knights. . . . Down to the French llevolution a German baron had to make a family settlement and to get the consent of his younger sons, if he wished his land to descend to the eldest son alone&quot; (Kenny, 11). In France the eldest son began to gain pre-eminence in the division of fiefs about the beginning of the llth century, and the usage spread with more or less vigour through all the Western countries. &quot; Usu ad omnia feuda serpsit, ut vel ex asse majori cedant, vel major prascipuum aliquod in iis habeat&quot; (Zoesius, cited in Co. Litt., 19 la). In countries where the Roman law prevailed the privileges of the eldest son were secured by a legal fiction, the jurists deciding that every noble was a &quot; miles &quot; or soldier on service entitled to exceptional benefits. In Spain the inheritance was con sidered to be divisible into fifteen shares, of which seven in all (being one-fifth of the whole and one-third of the residue, known as the customary &quot;fifth and third&quot;) were within the parent s disposal as a majoratus ; and this was usually entailed upon the eldest son. Similar privileges by way of majorat have been given to particular land owners in France at various times since the abolition of primogeniture in the great Revolution. The feudal primogeniture of England was firmly established in the reigns of the first two Norman kings, with a temporary provision for the case of estates lying both in England and Normandy, in which the Norman estate was allotted to the eldest son and the English estates to the second. Its origin, as we have seen, is to be found partly in old modes of customary inheritance surviving both in England and in Normandy, but mainly in the deliberate policy of the sovereigns, who wished to keep the military estates together, and took advantage of the strictness of the &quot;custom of Caux&quot; to carry out the objects of the &quot;law of the sword.&quot; (c. I. E.) PRIMROSE. 1 The genus Primula contains numerous species distributed throughout the cooler parts of Europe and Asia, and found also on the mountains of Abyssinia and Java. They are all herbaceous perennials, possessing a permanent stock, from which are emitted tufts of leaves and flower -stems which die down in winter ; the new growths formed in autumn remain in a bud-like condition ready to develop themselves in spring. They form the typical genus of Primulacese, the floral conformation of which is very interesting on several accounts independently of the beauty of the flowers. Thus the five stamens spring ing from the tube of the corolla, instead of being placed alternately with or between its lobes, are opposite or &quot;super posed &quot; to them, an arrangement accounted for by some on the supposition that an outer row of stamens (which, if present, would render the flower symmetrical) is suppressed. In support of this view the case of Samolus, an allied genus 1 Lat. primula ; Ital. and Span, primavcra ; Fr. xiriimvere, or in some provinces primerole. Strangely enough, the word was applied, according to Dr Prior, in the Middle Ages to the daisy (Bellis perennis], the present usage being of comparatively recent origin. in which there are five petaloid stamens as well as five fertile ones, may be cited. By others the anomaly is ex plained on the hypothesis that the corolla is suppressed, what appears to be such being merely an outgrowth from the stamens. But this view is not borne out by observa tion of the development of the flower. Within the base of the corolla tube is the one-celled superior ovary, rising up into the centre of which is a dome -shaped placenta, quite detached from the walls of the ovary and studded with ovules. The origin and explanation of this free central placenta have formed the subject of a copious literature, the point at issue being whether the placenta is a direct pro longation from the axis of the plant or an outgrowth from the walls of the carpels. 2 The variation in the length of the stamens and of the style in the flowers of this genus has attracted much attention since Darwin pointed out the true significance of these varied arrangements. Briefly it may be said that some of the flowers have short stamens and a long style, while others have long stamens, or stamens inserted so high up that the anthers protrude beyond the corolla tube, and a short style. Gardeners and florists had for centuries been familiar with these variations, calling the flowers from which the anthers protruded &quot;thrum- eyed&quot; and those in which the stigma appeared in the mouth of the tube &quot;pin-eyed.&quot; Darwin showed by ex periment and research that the most perfect degree of fertility, as shown by the greatest number of seeds and the healthiest seedlings, was attained when the pollen from a short-stamened flower was transferred to the stigma of a short- styled flower, or when the pollen from the long stamens was applied to the long style. As in any given flower the stamens are short (or low down in the flower- tube) and the style long, or conversely, it follows that to ensure a high degree of fertility cross fertilization must occur, and this is effected by the transfer of the pollen from one flower to another by insects. Incomplete fertility arises when the stigma is impregnated by the pollen from the same flower. The size of the pollen -grains and the texture of the stigma are different in the two forms of flower. The discovery of the physiological significance of these variations in structure, which had long been noticed, was made by Darwin, and formed the first of a series of similar observations and experiments recorded from time to time in the Journal of the Linnean Society and elsewhere by himself and subsequent observers. Among British species may be mentioned the Common Primrose (P. vul- f/aris) ; the Cowslip (P. veris), which is the original source of the Polyanthus of the gardens; the true Oxlip (P. elatior), a rare plant only found in the eastern counties ; and the Common Oxlip, by some considered to be a form of the Common Primrose but provided with a stem supporting the flowers. Darwin s experiments go to prove that the first-named three are species, while the last-named is a hybrid between the cowslip and the primrose. In addition to these species two others occur in Britain, namely, P. farinosa, found in Wales, the north of England, and southern Scotland, and P. scotica, which occurs in Orkney and Caithness, These two species are found also in high Arctic latitudes, and P farinosa, or a very closely allied form, exists in Fuego. The Auricula of the gardens was formerly considered to be a form of P. Auricula, a yellow - flowered species, a native of the Swiss mountains, but it has been recently shown by Kerner that in all probability the origin of the Auricula was P. pulcscr.ns, supposed to be a natural hybrid between P. Auricula and P. hirsuta. The Polyanthus has already been mentioned as a variety of the cowslip, but it may further be added that some very remarkable forms which have been cultivated for centuries owe their peculiarities to a For a full discussion of this and other points iu the morphology of the flower, the reader may refer to Dr Masters s paper in the Pro ceedings of the Linnean Society, 2d ser,, vol, i, (1877) p. 285, or to Eichler s Blilthen-Diagramme. XIX. 93