Primula elatiorHill

oxliptrue oxlip

WFO wfo-0000483455 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Primula elatior, photographed by Jason Grant
fig. a Jason Grant, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-11 / obs. 205218277
Primula elatior, photographed by David Sandler
fig. b David Sandler, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200245466
Primula elatior, photographed by Norrland
fig. c Norrland, CC0 1.0 / obs. 198435328
Primula elatior, photographed by E. A.
fig. d E. A., CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196471801
Primula elatior, photographed by Gabriel Mayrhofer
fig. e Gabriel Mayrhofer, CC0 1.0 / obs. 200035910
Primula elatior, photographed by Charlotte Kirchner
fig. f Charlotte Kirchner, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194395634
Primula elatior, photographed by Attila Oláh
fig. g Attila Oláh, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 193875323
Primula elatior, photographed by Michael Hansen
fig. h Michael Hansen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194993463

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 32 botanical countries

Regions where Primula elatior is native: Altay, Buryatiya, Irkutsk, Kazakhstan, Krasnoyarsk, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Tuva, West Siberia, Albania, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Northwest European Russia, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine AltayBuryatiyaIrkutskKazakhstanKrasnoyarskTranscaucasusTürkiyeTuvaWest SiberiaAlbaniaAustriaBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyNetherlandsNorthwest European RussiaNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandUkraine
Native distribution of Primula elatior, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Belarus BLR
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Netherlands NET
Northwest European Russia RUW
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Ukraine UKR
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
Buryatiya BRY
Irkutsk IRK
Kazakhstan KAZ
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Tuva TVA
West Siberia WSB

Not drawn on the map: Great Britain. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 1,804 in flower of 1,852 examined

Peak flowering in Oct. Each bar is the share of Primula elatior observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 1,804 of 1,852 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 4 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 39 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Primula alpestris Schur
  • Primula altaica Pall. ex Ledeb.
  • Primula ambigua Salisb.
  • Primula brachycalix Opiz
  • Primula carpathica (Gris & Schrenk) Fuss
  • Primula crenata Schur
  • Primula danubialis K.Richt.
  • Primula domestica Hoffmanns.
  • Primula elatior f. poloninensis Domin
  • Primula elatior subsp. carpathica Nyman
  • Primula elatior subsp. carpatica (Gris & Schrenk) Nyman
  • Primula elatior subsp. corcontica (Domin) Kovanda
  • Primula elatior subsp. poloninensis (Domin) Dostál
  • Primula elatior subsp. tatrensis (Domin) Soó
  • Primula elatior subvar. carpatica Gris & Schrenk
  • Primula elatior var. acaulis Klett & Richt.
  • Primula elatior var. brevistyla Gaudin
  • Primula elatior var. carpatica (Gris & Schrenk) Nikolic
  • Primula elatior var. corcontica Domin
  • Primula elatior var. dissecta Roth
  • Primula elatior var. incisa Mérat
  • Primula elatior var. monstrosa Gaudin
  • Primula elatior var. pallasii (Lehm.) Pax
  • Primula elatior var. tatrensis Domin

and 15 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.