Primula vialii Delavay ex Franchet, Bull. Soc. Philom. Paris. 3: 148. 1891.
Section MuscarioidesLink to Flora of China description
Type specimen:Delavay s.n. 9 August 1888 resides at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (specimen E00024205), KEW (specimens K000732988, K000732987) and Smithsonian (specimen 00116487).Type P. littoniana (syn) specimen: Forrest 2655 resides at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (specimen E00024207) and KEW (specimens K000732993,K000732994, K000732995). Forrest, Notes Roy. Bot. Gard. Edinburgh. 4: 225. 1908. Type P. littoniana var robusta (syn) specimen: Forrest 22179 resides at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (specimen E00024206) and KEW (specimen K000732992). Forrest, Notes Roy. Bot. Gard. Edinburgh. 14: 47. 1929.
P. vialii is an attractive species easily identified by its spikes of flowers with red calyces. It comes from N and NW Yunnan and SW Sichuan and grows in wet meadows. Considered rare in the wild, it is often cultivated in gardens where it appears above ground late in the season. Hybrids with P. flaccida are known in cultivation as shown in the last image. Synonym P. littoniana can not be distinguished by any characters from P. vialii.
