Description
It is an herbaceous perennial plant, low growing, to 10–30 cm tall, with a basal rosette of leaves. The leaves are 5–25 cm long and 2–6 cm broad with an irregularly crenate to dentate margin, and a usually short leaf stem. The flowers are 2–4 cm in diameter, borne singly on a slender stem, pale yellow, white, red, or purple (see further below), actinomorphic with a superior ovary which later forms a capsule which opens by valves to release the small black seeds. The flowers are hermaphrodite but heterostylous; individual plants bear either pin flowers (longuistylous flower: with the capita of the style prominent) or thrum flowers (brevistylous flower: with the stamens prominent). Fertilisation can only take place between pin and thrum flowers. Pin-to-pin and thrum-to-thrum pollination is ineffective.
It flowers in early spring, one of the earliest spring flowers in much of Europe. ("Primrose" is ultimately from Old French primerose or medieval Latin prima rosa, meaning "first rose".) In appropriate conditions, it can cover the ground in open woods and shaded hedgerows.
In more populated areas it has sometimes suffered from over-collection and theft so that few natural displays of primroses in abundance can now be found. However it is common on motorway verges and railway embankments where human intervention is restricted. To prevent excessive damage to the species, picking of primroses or the removal of primrose plants from the wild is illegal in many countries, e.g. the UK (Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, Section 13, part 1b).
Read more about this topic: Primula Vulgaris
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