Spring has sprung. Wonderful things are happening in the garden and surrounding country side. As often as I have heard and watched spring arrive, it is never less dramatic or taken for granted. On warm balmy days there is a sense of euphoria, heightened by sounds that only come at this time of year. One such sound would be the loud chorus of cheeps that are created by the many spring peppers or Pseudacris crucifer. Anyone that lives next to marshy ground or swampy lowlands becomes very familiar with the chorus that seems deafening at times, particularly at twilight and into the night. These very small frogs gather in wet locations and breed for a couple of months, often lasting into May. Sounding like baby chicks, the peeps begin in early March as the first of the thawed spring peepers begin slowly peeping. Only one inch in size, these small frogs feed on insects, primarily ants, beetles, flies and spiders. Many eggs are laid during this period and small tadpoles transform into full fledged frogs in June and July. If there is one flower I might associate with this loud chorus, it would be the primrose. Of recent interest are the various cowslips, oxslips and false oxlips. These are the wild primula of Great Britain and they grow in the same sort of places that spring peepers breed. Inclined to hybridize amongst themselves, a bit of detective work will reveal exactly what Tom-foolery has been going on with numerous seedlings. The true cowslip is Primula veris which flowers with a bobbing head of yellow, variable in their degree of yellow and always held by an oversized calyx which looks like a loose pantaloon legging at the base of each flower. The veris in the name means true, hence the common name. Primula vulgaris is the true oxlip and the yellow flowers have a much smaller calyx and may look upwards or outwards. The species name vulgaris means common, once common in the fields, meadows and hedgerows of England, but their popularity as garden flowers for bouquets has greatly diminished the wild populations. When left to their own devices and growing in close range, these two cross pollinate and we have false oxlips with flowers that come in various shades of yellow and hold their flowers at angles not normal for any true strain. On occasion one may find a yellow flowering oxlip with one flower coming out of another. These are referred to as hose-n-hose flowers, possibly false oxlip. Hose was an old name for stockings and most often these were stored one inside the other, with the top one turned down, very much like the doubled oxlip flower. Hence the common name. In fact there are many other common names for the wild primrose of Great Britain. The flowers themselves are sometimes known as "peeps", something that makes me ponder England's possible source of small frog sounds and the seemingly perfect association. One is fine without the other - but together they scream spring!