Churchyard Nature Note with Andrew Tompsett
April 2010
Primroses
After a long cold winter, the sight of primroses, the traditional Easter Flower’, will be especially welcome this spring.
The name, Primula vulgaris from the Latin ‘primus’denotes earliness or first flower, and ‘vulgaris’ simply means common.
These perennial plants have a life
reckonedtobe at least 15 –25 years and are fortunately widespread in our churchyard. They will remain so, as long
as we don’t allow coarser-growing competitors to over-shadow them.
This is especially important if we want
their seeds to colonise new areas.
Another requirement is ample soil
moisture through the year.In the West,
open groundand hedge banks are
generally damp enough but in Eastern counties the plant prefers shady
woodland.
In the past huge numbers of primroses were picked, tied in neat bunches with leaves and sent to the cities by mail order and by train,many from Gwinnear Station, especially at Easter
Queen Victoria was said to love the flower
as did thepolitician and Prime Minister
Benjamin Disraeli, and the Queen sent
him bunches of primroses from Windsor andOsborne each year. The 19th April became known as Primrose Day and in
my childhood we incorporated many primroses in May garlands.
More recently, the wholesale picking of
wild flowers has become unacceptable
andfortunately the practice has virtually ceased, leaving the plants free to produce as much seed as possible to maintain populations.
To aid seed production, primroses have a
cunning trick. The structure of the flowers maximises the chances of crosspollination,
which, in most plants, is always an advantage.Look closely at primrose flowersand you will see that some plants have ‘pin-eyed’ flowers whilst others have ‘thrum-eyed’ ones. This refers to the relative length of the pollen-bearing stamens
and the receptive stigma. All rather curious, until you realise that such a strategy largely prevents self-pollination and so helps to maintain the genetic vigour of the stock.
So, enjoy the beautiful carpets of our wild primroses. Never dig them up and try to avoid planting the modern gaudy garden ones in wild places (likeour churchyard) because they cancross-pollinate and produce muddy pink-coloured hybrids.