Primula obtusifolia Royle

Not common in Kashmir. Ludlow & Sherriff’s specimen from Kishtvar is the only record so far available. Found in dry rocky places or near melting snow from 3900-5000 m. Variable as regards the size of the leaf, scape and calyx. The colour of the farina may be yellow or white.

The species is related to Primula macrophylla from which it differs in the membranous leaves, and the shorter included capsules.

A perennial with a stout rootstock sheathed in basal brown scales. Leaves 7-24 x 1.6-7 cm, elliptic-obtuse or oblanceolate, margin crenulate to denticulate or sometimes dentate, glabrous to sparsely pubescent, farinose on the undersurface (farina bright yellow) or not, membranous. Scape solitary, rarely more, stout, 10-14 cm long, glabrous, except at the base of the bracts where it is farinose. Bracts 6-14 mm, lanceolate. Pedicel 11-42 mm long, exceeding the bracts. Flowers heteromorphic, umbellate, sometimes superposed. Calyx 5-11 mm long, campanulate, green or blackish in colour, farinose within, c. ½ cleft; lobes lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate. Corolla tube 11-14 mm long, limb 12.5-22 mm broad, throat yellow or white; lobes 7.5-9 x 6.5-8 mm, obovate or suborbicular, entire. Style 3-4 mm long (in thrum-eyed flowers), 10-11 mm in the pin-eyed ones. Capsule oblong, cylindric, included in the calyx. Seeds c. 1 mm long.

Distribution: E. Kashmir to E. Himalaya.

Fl. Per.: June-July.