Types of Primulas

Primrose

• A wide variety of primroses sport colorful flowers, supported on long stalks or grouped in bunches throughout the plant. Native to cooler climates in the temperate areas of North America, Asia and Europe, the primrose is a hardy plant that you can grow in the garden, where it will bloom throughout the spring and summer. Grow it indoors or in a greenhouse, and it can bloom through the winter months as well. Some members of the primrose family are hardy enough to survive in the rockiest of soils, while others can handle the permanently wet soils around swamps and marshes.

Cowslip

• Cowslips are a more delicate member of the primula family. The flowers of the cowslip are on a stalk that grows from leaves resting near or on the ground in a circular pattern; they are usually bright yellow or a pale cream. They bloom in the early spring months. Native to Britain and northern Europe, these flowers thrive in the rich environments the European woodlands and grasslands. Urbanization threatened the cowslip for a brief period, but it remains a popular garden plant and has been returned to a number of the native areas it had previously disappeared from.

Auricula

• The auricula is a flower native to the middle of Europe where it thrives in a variety of soils and climates. It has distinctive flowers, sprouting in a ball form from a single stalk. The flowers themselves are shades of purple with yellow centers and are flanked by evergreen leaves. The flowers do best when they are in soils rich with organic fertilizer, and their ability to survive in heavy, clay soils makes them suitable for areas of the garden where other plants may not grow.

Oxlip

• The oxlip is a relatively rare primula that has one of its earliest mentions in the work of William Shakespeare. It is extremely closely related to other species of primrose, and for a long time there was debate on whether or not it was a species of its own. The main identifying trait of the oxlip is the tendency for the flowers, which bloom on a long stalk, to drape to one side rather than to surround the stalk. To make things even more complicated, primroses and oxlips will reproduce together when they are in close vicinity to produce a hybrid version. Native to Great Britain, the oxlip has benefited from conservation efforts.