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Is this Primula elatior? We live 2 miles from the epicentre of this ambivalent species, the oxlip - or Bardfield oxlip if you accept its origin in our neighbouring village. Why ambivalent? Its discoverer in 1842, Henry Doubleday (not the modern ecologist, perhaps a forebear), considered it a species. Others, some still vocal, call it a hybrid between the cowslip (locally pagils or peggles) and the primrose, Primula veris and P. vulgaris. All three grow in our garden and churchyard, with the oxlip clearly the queen of the tribe. She flowers in late April, in dampish spots on our chalky boulder clay. She is in a minority here, mixing with her cousins (although one seemingly ideal bank only has cowslips in large numbers). She comes true from seed. And look how feisty she is.

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