Cowslip - Primula veris

Scientific Name: Primula veris.

English Name: Cowslip

French Name: Coucou.

The first Cowslip of spring, photographed in March.

5 Key Characters:

• 10-30 flowers in a head, spread in all directions, not just drooping to one side.
• petals apricoty yellow with orange streaks.
• flowers are cup shaped and fold down into a tube.
• flowers are held in a downy, blunt oval toothed calyx.
• very wrinkled leaves.

Lookalikes: Some hybrid garden primulas.

Habitat: Meadows, grasslands, open woods on basic or calcareous soils.

Flowering Period: March-April-May.

Status: Common.

Photographed by Loire Valley Nature:

Cowslips in the lawn at the Chateau of Candé, near Tours.  The chateau grounds are run as a nature reserve and the lawns are full of wild flowers, including several species of orchid.

Photo taken mid-March.

In the lawn at friends house, in late February.

A group of cowslips in a lawn, including some which have mutated to have red flowers. This is a reasonably common mutation.