"In my heart two things are true: shooting stars will always belong to Dodecatheon, and, regretfully, all of them are actually members of the genus Primula" - James Reveal
The research paper "Transfer of Dodecatheon to Primula (Primulaceae)" by Austin Mast and James Reveal in Brittonia 59(1):79-82. 2007 (PDF), transferred the species of the Genus Dodecatheon into the Genus Primula under a new Section called Dodecatheon (L.). This was a controversial move for gardeners, especially those in the North American Rock Garden Society (NARGS) whose symbol is a Dodecatheon. One of the coauthors, James Reveal, wrote about the results of this paper in an article (PDF) in the Rock Garden Quarterly (the NARGS journal). He explained that previous research by Austin Mast into the evolutionary history of Primula showed that Dodecatheon falls within the Auriculastrum Subgenus (which includes the well known Section Auricula) and is closest to Section Suffrutescens, which has only one member, Primula suffrutescens.
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Primula suffrutescens by Jay Lunn |
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Buzz pollination by bee on Dodecatheon |
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Section Dodecatheon flower structure from Mitchem, The Plantsman 13(3) 1991. |
The acceptance of the transfer of Dodecatheon to Primula has been slow. The Flora of North America acknowledges Mast & Reveal's work, but keeps Dodecatheon separate while indicating the new names in synonymy. Later treatments, such as the Jepson eFlora and the Encyclopedia of Life include Dodecatheon in Primula. I now include these species in my Species Gallery though the new names aren't a simple replacement of the name Dodecatheon with Primula, so consult the Mast & Reveal paper for naming.
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Primula conjugens var. viscida Pam Eveleigh © 2017 |
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