I have always known this plant as Primula edgeworthii (Hook.f.) Pax but in his book ‘Primula’ (Batsford 1993), John Richards concludes that its correct name should be the earlier one of P. nana Wall. His arguments for the change are based on a close similarity between herbarium material of P. edgeworthii and what Fletcher and Smith called ‘very imperfect material' of P. nana.

The name edgeworthii has only ever been applied to the one species so that its continued use is not going to lead to any confusion but Richards says that many early authors considered the epithet nana to be confused as Hooker used it ‘indiscriminately for a variety of species’. I tend to agree with my old Professor, Sir William Wright Smith who used to tell us as students that if there was more than one published name for a species, it did not matter greatly which name you used as long as you gave the authority along with the name. So for the purposes of this article I am calling the plant P. edgeworthii (Hook. F.) Pax. (syn. P. nana Wall.). Some of our older readers will recall that it used to be called P. winteri Watson but this name is no longer used to my knowledge.

P. edgeworthii grows from Himachal Pradesh in India through to Central Nepal. Plants from its western distribution tend to have blue or lilac flowers while in the east in Central Nepal the flowers are pink. The plant illustrated was collected by Chris Chadwell and myself as seed in 1990 on the southern slopes of Annapurna at a height of 3000 m and given the number CC&McK 219. As you can see it has the clear pink colour of typical Nepalese plants.

The seed germinated in 1991 and plants flowered in 1992. The plants are given light shade and plenty of water during the growing season but are covered with glass in the winter until early March when they begin to come into flower. I find that plants tend to rot if covers are kept on while the flowers buds are about to open.

Plants are short lived and rarely survive after flowering but they set plenty of seed which germinates quickly if sown as soon as it is ripe in June. If it fails to germinate at once it will do so in April of the next year. Seed has been distributed to several people and it has gone through several generations. It is not a difficult plant to grow here in the north of Scotland and its beauty in early spring is quite outstanding. Populations in Nepal vary greatly in plant size, amount of farina, flower size and colour; seedlings of my plants are also variable. Pin and thrum occur and it is advisable to do some hand pollination to get good seed set.

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