Primula Florindae

By Beth Tait

One thinks of spring as primrose time, but the ground has to be prepared ahead of time if one is to have primroses blooming in the spring. We all have Polyanthus, Auriculas and Candelabra, so why not try some of the other Primulas, such as Primula florindae with its belled blooms that are so very fragrant that it makes you look around to see what’s blooming. P. florindae comes from Tibet. In the western U.S.A. it blooms in June and July, even into October. I still had a few plants in bloom on October 20th.

The older the plants the larger the clumps become, some to several feet wide and three feet tall. Can you imagine a Primula plant like that? The root system is highly fibrous and so very compact, so much so when removing a large clump you have a big hole in the ground. The small thick roots are a red rusty color, some look like thick thread. This plant likes a boggy spot or around pools and creek beds.
I had neither, so I opened an old tile as our place is an old homestead. They used hollow logs as drain tile, laying them end to end. This extra water running over the root system of the plants madefor much larger plants. As water only bubbled up from the tile when it rained, the ground stayed soggy. If you stuck your finger in the ground and pulled it out, the hole would fill with water. That was the condition they grew in, and seemed to enjoy it.

This old tile made an ideal spot for P. florindae and P. sieboldii. Such foliage and blooms you can’t imagine. A lathhouse is over the top for filtered shelter so plants may bloom beyond their blooming time. Must be over a hundred P. florindae and a thousand or so P. sieboldii in all the colors, as I got some of Barnhaven’s lovely P. Sieboldii before they went out of business. Some snow flakes and rounded blooms in pink, blue, white and maroon, some were even ruffled.

P. florindae is easily raised from seed. The foliage comes up on a stem and has a round winged leaf with some maroon color in the leaf. If in right conditions the leaf and stalk will grow a foot or so in height, the scapes are larger than your finger, smooth stalks with sometimes farina powder on the top half of the stalk, running up into the umbel and the single stems that hold the single flowers, covering every bloom. If you touch the farina it will stick to your finger. When gathering the seed, the farina sticks to everything and gets up your nose. The flower umbels will sometimes carry as many as 80 to 100 flowers, each bloom on a single stem from main bract, which is one to three inches and coated with creamy yellow or white meal. The blooms are funnel shaped, each bloom hangs dangling down on 4 to 5 inch, or even longer, stems. Some plants have dozens of stalks of bloom, depending on age.

P. florindae blooms come in canary yellow, rusty orange (copper might be a better description of color), and some a red maroon on outside and a powder yellow inside the bloom. These colors are due to hybridizing, as the yellow was collected in the wild by Kingdon Ward may years ago. I have had all the colors. P. florindae sometimes sends up a second and a third set of blooms from the first big umbel, so they set one ball of blooms on top of each other, making a height of three feet or so.

The blooms are sweet1y fragrant, somewhat like hyacinth, so make a delightful plant to use around pools for a June wedding in the garden.

The older the plant the more bloom stalks you get. A three year old plant is a delight to see, with dozens of bloom stalks, so don’t expect too much the first year. P. florindae goes underground for winter. I sometimes think I have lost the plants, as they are late in coming up. They usually come up the latter part of May, first showing little red mouse ears, which are the leaves. Once they start coming, as the weather is warmer, they grow fast. In no time you can see the bud stalks showing. As for dividing plants, I have never had the chance as people see the plants and must have them. Hummingbirds and butterflies seem to enjoy the blooms and tiny green and gold frogs sit on the leaves, and the fragrance makes you want to linger also.
[Reprinted from the Spring 1972 Quarterly]

[Reprinted from the American Primrose Society Pictorial Dictionary of the Cultivated Species of the Genus Primula, 1948]

Florindae One of the most popular and widely grown of the Tibetian discoveries of Kingdon Ward. It is a robust early species, a plant which often reaches a height of 3' in culture. The root system is highly fibrous, characteristic of bog plants. The leaves are 2-8" long, broad-ovate, rounded at apex, deeply cordate at base, dentate, glossy. Dark green petiole 3-5" long, stout, winged, often red tinged. The scape, usually smooth but sometimes bearing farina near the tip, bears an umbel; sometimes two, one above the other; made up of 40-60, and in extreme fucundity, 80 flowers. The bracts and 1-4" pedicels are heavily coated with creamy-yellow or white meal. The flowers are sulphur-yellow, copiously creamy-farinose within, pendant, 3/4" across, funnel shaped, and sweetly fragrant. The species is becoming rare on the Pacific Coast due to Florindae’s tendency to cross with alpicola, waltonii, and other related species. However, these crosses result in such beautifully colored corollas, that the best and most sweetly scented hybrids are being perpetuated by hand pollination. This handsome primula grows along the creek at Barnhaven as if it were its native home. “Its fragrance is flowery and yet it is like nutmeg. It was quite drowned in the flood but it bloomed magnificently last June. To me it is exotic and extravagant and I am grateful that it likes our creek. The hummingbirds love it” (Florence Bellis) “Loose heads of dangling mealy-amber bells, ambrosially scented on 4- 5' stems (we have never seen any this tall) above lush foliage of brightest green.” (Richard Sudell) Flowers here in June and July.

Photo Credit: Debbie Hinchey