Primula is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Primulaceae. They include the primrose, a familiar wildflower of banks and verges. Other common species are P. auricula (auricula), P. veris (cowslip), and P. elatior (oxlip). These species and many others are valued for their ornamental flowers. They have been extensively cultivated and hybridised. Primula are native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere, south into tropical mountains in Ethiopia, Indonesia, and New Guinea, and in temperate southern South America. Almost half of the known species are from the Himalayas.
Primula sect. Dodecatheon is a section of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Primulaceae. Primula species in this section were formerly placed in a separate genus, Dodecatheon. The species have basal clumps of leaves and nodding flowers that are produced at the top of tall stems rising from where the leaves join the crown. The genus is largely confined to North America and part of northeastern Siberia. Common names include shooting star, American cowslip, mosquito bills, mad violets, and sailor caps. A few species are grown in gardens for their showy and unique flower display.
Primula hendersonii is a species of flowering plant in the family Primulaceae, native to western North America, from California north to southern British Columbia and Idaho. Common names include broad-leaved shooting star, Henderson's shooting star, mosquito bills, and sailor caps.
Primula vulgaris, the common primrose, is a species of flowering plant in the family Primulaceae, native to western and southern Europe, northwest Africa, and parts of southwest Asia. The common name is primrose, or occasionally common primrose or English primrose to distinguish it from other Primula species also called primroses. None of these are closely related to the evening primroses.
Primula meadia, the shooting star or eastern shooting star, is a species of flowering plant in the primrose family Primulaceae. It is native to the eastern United States and Canada, spanning north from Manitoba and New York, south to Texas and Florida.
Primula pauciflora, the pretty shooting star, few-flowered shooting star, dark throat shooting star or prairie shooting star, is a species of flowering plant in the primula family Primulaceae. It is a widespread and very variable species, native to western North America, from Subarctic America to Mexico, often in xeric and desert habitats. It is found in the Great Basin Deserts and Mojave Desert. Its synonyms include Dodecatheon pauciflorum and Dodecatheon pulchellum.
Primula tetrandra, synonyms Dodecatheon tetrandrum and Dodecatheon alpinum, is a perennial plant in the primrose family, Primulaceae, known by the common name alpine shooting star.
Primula conjugens, synonym Dodecatheon conjugens, is a species of flowering perennial plant in the primrose family, known by the common name Bonneville shooting star.
Primula jeffreyi, synonym Dodecatheon jeffreyi, is a species of flowering plant in the primrose family known by the common names Sierra shooting star, Jeffrey's shooting star, and tall mountain shooting star. This wildflower is native to western North America from California to Alaska to Montana, where it grows in mountain meadows and streambanks. This is a thick-rooted perennial with long, slightly wrinkled leaves around the base. It erects slim, tall, hairy stems which are dark in color and are topped with inflorescences of 3 to 18 showy flowers. Each flower nods, with its pointed center aimed at the ground when fresh, and becomes more erect with age. It has four or five reflexed sepals in shades of pink, lavender, or white which lie back against the body of the flower. Each sepal base has a blotch of bright yellow. From the corolla mouth protrude large dark anthers surrounding a threadlike stigma. The flowers of this species were considered good luck by the Nlaka'pamux people, who used them as amulets and love charms. The specific epithet jeffreyi is in honor of John Jeffrey.
Primula fragrans, synonym Dodecatheon redolens, has the common name scented shooting star. It is a species of flowering plant in the primrose family.
Cortusa is a formerly recognized genus in the family Primulaceae. It is now regarded as a synonym of the genus Primula. It consisted of about 19 species of delicate, hardy, alpine perennials. The genus was named by the herbalist Matthiolus after his friend Cortusus, professor of botany at Padua, who discovered the plant originally called Cortusa matthioli (now Primula matthioli. The plants are flowering herbaceous perennials native to the mountains of southern and eastern Europe, including the Alps and the Carpathians, with some species native to China. Most of the species are small spring bloomers for shade and rock garden. These low-growing and rather handsome little plants have clumps of downy, light green, heart-shaped leaves with serrated edges. In late spring, small loose umbel of delicate bell-shaped to lily-liked flowers born terminally on drooping spikes arise from the base, some 6-8in high. Flowers are magenta, pink, white and yellow. They are dormant in some months, and as spring begins, stems and leaves quickly start to reproduce.
Primula austrofrigida, syn. Dodecatheon austrofrigidum, is a species of flowering plant in the primrose family known by the common names frigid shooting star and tundra shooting star. It is native to Washington and Oregon in the United States, where it grows in the coastal mountain ranges, including those on the Olympic Peninsula.
Primula poetica, synonym Dodecatheon poeticum, is commonly known as the poet's shooting star or the narcissus shooting star. P. poetica is a species of the genus Primula placed in section Dodecatheon. It is native to the states of Oregon and Washington in western North America. The section contains herbaceous flowering plants and is also a part of the primrose family Primulaceae. This plant has basal clumps of leaves and drooping flowers that occur at the apex of tall stems that rise from where the leaves join.
Primula frigida, synonym Dodecatheon frigidum, commonly called the western arctic shootingstar, is a plant species found in arctic and subarctic regions in the northwestern part of North America and in Asiatic Russia.
Androsace vitaliana is a species of plant in the primrose family, Primulaceae. It was previously known by the synonym Vitaliana primuliflora. Native to the high mountains of Europe, it is cultivated as an alpine garden plant, being considered easy to grow in well drained soil in a sunny position.
Primula frenchii, French's shootingstar, is a species of flowering plant in the family Primulaceae. It is native to the central and southern United States, in southern Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Alabama. It grows in moist, shady areas such as ledges near streams and under sandstone cliffs.
Primula capitata, commonly known as the round-headed Himalayan primrose or Asiatic primrose is a species of flowering plant in the family Primulaceae. It is a short-lived perennial, forming semi-evergreen rosettes of 15cm pale green, mealy leaves that are finely toothed, oblong-lance-shaped or inversely lance-shaped, with white-mealy undersides. Its flowers are up to 1cm long, dark purple and tubular, with shallowly lobed petals; they are borne in racemes that form flattened spheres, held on white-mealy stems about 40cm high.
Primula aureata is a species of flowering plant from the family Primulaceae.
Primula standleyana, synonym Dodecatheon ellisiae, is a species of flowering plant in the family Primulaceae, native to Arizona, New Mexico and Northeast Mexico. It was first described by Paul Carpenter Standley in 1913 as Dodecatheon ellisiae. When the genus Dodecatheon was reduced to Primula sect. Dodecatheon following molecular phylogenetic studies, the species could not be transferred to Primula as Primula ellisiae, as that name had already been used for a different species. Accordingly, the replacement name Primula standleyana was provided.
Primula utahensis, synonym Dodecatheon utahense, is a species of flowering plant in the family Primulaceae, native to Utah. It was first described by Noel Holmgren in 1994 as Dodecatheon dentatum var. utahense. In 2006, it was raised to a separate species as Dodecatheon utahense. When Dodecatheon was sunk into Primula in 2007, it was transferred to that genus as Primula utahensis.
