Flat pale-yellow five-petalled flowers borne singly on downy stalks straight out of a rosette of crinkled, tongue-shaped leaves
Primrose — Primula vulgaris.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Primrose
Flowers March to May
Primula vulgaris — Primulaceae
The primrose is the pale-yellow spring flower of woodland rides, hedgebanks and railway cuttings, each bloom carried singly on its own hairy stalk from a rosette of crinkled, tongue-shaped leaves. Its name means "first rose", and it is the county flower of Devon. It was Disraeli's favourite flower, and 19 April, the anniversary of his death, was long kept as Primrose Day.
How to spot them
- ▸Flat-faced, pale sulphur-yellow flowers, each one alone on its own downy stalk straight from the rosette
- ▸Five notched petals, fused into a tube, with a deeper yellow or orange eye in the throat
- ▸Crinkled, wrinkled, tongue-shaped leaves tapering gradually into the stalk, the veins sunken above
- ▸Flowers March to May, often on shady banks, and in the west in coastal grassland
- ▸Two flower forms — pin-eyed (long style, stigma showing) and thrum-eyed (short style, anthers showing)
How to know it
Its name means 'first rose'; it is the county flower of Devon
Primrose — from Latin prima rosa via Old French primerole.
19 April, the anniversary of Disraeli's death in 1881, was long kept as a day named after this flower
Primrose Day — the primrose was said to be Disraeli's favourite flower.
Darwin used this genus to describe heterostyly: the pin-eyed and thrum-eyed forms that force cross-pollination
Primrose and its relatives — pin flowers have a long style, thrum flowers short.
Crossed with a meadow relative it gives the false oxlip, a cluster of large flat flowers on one stalk
Primula × polyantha, the false oxlip — Primula vulgaris crossed with the cowslip, Primula veris.
Milton's Lycidas calls it 'the rathe' flower 'that forsaken dies', and Cymbeline has it 'pale' and dying unmarried
Primrose — a stock emblem of youth cut short.
To be on 'the path of dalliance' in Hamlet is to tread a way named after this flower
The primrose path — Laertes' warning to Ophelia, Hamlet I.iii.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Primulaceae; Primula vulgaris was long written Primula acaulis ('stemless')
- •County flower of Devon in Plantlife's 2002 County Flowers survey
- •Heterostyly: pin-eyed and thrum-eyed flowers cannot fertilise their own form, so insects must carry pollen between plants
- •The false oxlip (Primula × polyantha) is the hybrid with the cowslip; the true oxlip is a distinct species, Primula elatior, largely confined to boulder-clay woods on the Essex–Suffolk–Cambridgeshire border
- •Garden polyanthus and most bedding 'primroses' descend from crosses involving Primula vulgaris
- •Primrose Day, 19 April, marks Disraeli's death in 1881; the Primrose League was founded in his memory in 1883
- •Pollinated by bumblebees, bee-flies and the brimstone butterfly, one of the earliest butterflies on the wing
- •A primrose may be picked, but uprooting any wild plant without the landowner's permission is an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981
Drill it — 8 cards
1 / 8new card
Sources
- Woodland Trust — Primrose (Primula vulgaris)