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A tiny growing species from the Eastern Caucasus introduced to cultivation at the start of the 20th century.
It was rapidly hybridised with Primula vulgaris and other species to produce a range of
bright, vigorous hybrids. 'Wanda' has been the most inescapable but there are hundreds of them. I got a plant of the species from Joe Sharman and was delighted to see the real thing which is now endangered in the wild. John Richards says of it: "The Caucasus were amongst the last mountain ranges of the world to be explored botanically. Thus it was not until 1897 that this relatively widespread, accessible and conspicuous primula was discovered by the eponymous Professor Julia Mloossjewicx (or Mlokosewitch) in the region of what is today the Lagodekh Gorge National Park. On the same expedition, two other notable garden plants, Paeonia mlokosewitchii and Gentiana lagodechiana, were discovered and introduced to cultivation. P. juliae is a distinctive and delightful little primula which is very suitable for open-ground cultivation. Curiously, it is seldom grown, although it is long lived and not difficult in suitable conditions, and is easily propagated by division. Nevertheless, it has become extensively naturalised on the banks above a resevoir not far from Glasgow, Scotland (Peter MacPherson pers com). |
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| 15th April 2013 | ||
