Recent New Primula Species

Primula hydrocotylifolia. The New Year is a good time to reflect on what is new in Primula. In my Original Description Project, the list of all Primula species is a moving target. In particular, there have been several new Chinese species discovered and described recently but new...

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The Truth about the Blue Nivalids (P. melanops)

Habitat of Primula melanops. Primula melanops is a name which many people know from cultivated plants, but what is the true species? It was first collected by Handel-Mazzetti in Muli, north of Yanyuan, in 1914, but he didn't describe the plant until 1924 using the name P. leucochnoa....

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The Truth about the Blue Nivalids (P. farreriana)

Primula farreriana was collected by Farrer and Purdom in the “Ta-Tung Alps, Kansu” in June and July, 1915 (F. 560, Primula No. 29). Ta-tung is a small mountain range east of Qinghai Lake, Qinghai and could be considered a southern extension of the Quilian (Qilian) mountains. Farrer...

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The Truth about the Blue Nivalids (introduction)

I guess the first truth is that they really aren't blue, but they are certainly species which have purple flowers on the blue tone, rather than the red tone.   Secondly, the Nivalids are what we call members of the Crystallophlomis Section which use to be called the Nivales Section...

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The Chinese Virtual Herbarium (CVH)

A plant species is usually described from a type specimen which is stored in a herbarium. In trying to understand the Genus Primula, I look at Primula herbarium specimens which have been scanned and are available online on websites of herbariums around the world. Relevant websites can be...

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The Original Description Project

The Genus Primula was described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 I started writing blog posts for Primula World as a means of keeping track of research I do behind the scenes while identifying Primula images for the Species Gallery. I consult many references in the process which includes Floras,...

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