Showing posts with label Primulaceae. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Primulaceae. Show all posts

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Plant Story -- Reasons to Like Primroses, Primula

primrose, Primula eliator
from my yard
I’ve been trying for years to grow primroses, genus Primula. Last year I stuck three sad little plants, rescued from the nursery’s end-of-the-season stock, into my yard and ooh, this spring all three are alive and flowering!

What is special about primroses?

They are pretty!

Also, I associate them with the literature set in England I read as a child. Primroses grew in the well-tended gardens of the ladies in quaint English villages. 

In addition, primroses were the usual example of a curious plant reproductive system, studied by Charles Darwin himself and carefully described to us by my professor at Berkeley, Herbert Baker, an Englishman with a fondness for them.