Primula prenantha I. B. Balfour & W. W. Smith in I. B. Balfour, Notes Roy. Bot. Gard. Edinburgh. 9: 191. 1915.
Section Proliferae
Link to Flora of China description
Link to Nepal checklist
Type specimens: Cave 108; Gammie 208; King's collector s.n. June 1888 (Jongri) resides at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (specimen E00259793, E00259794, E00259795, E00259796, E00259797).
P. prenantha ssp. prenantha
P. microloma (syn): Handel-Mazzetti., Kaiserl. Akad. Wiss. Wien, Math.-Naturwiss. Kl., Anz. 61:134. 1925. Type specimen: Handel-Mazzetti 9215 resides at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (specimen E00024074, E00024075). White flowered.
P. prenantha ssp. morsheadiana (Kingdon-Ward): Chen & C. M. Hu, Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 59(2): 126. 1990.
P. morsheadiana (syn): Kingdon-Ward, Notes Roy. Bot. Gard. Edinburgh. 15:70. 1926. Type specimen: Kingdon-Ward 5858 resides at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (specimen E00024402) and KEW (specimen K000750095).
Distribution: Nepal, Myanmar, Assam, Sikkim, Yunnan, Tibet
Distinguished by having small tubular flowers with the petals in line with the corolla tube. Leaves are oblong-obovate, round at the apex and erose-denticulate at the margin with the teeth terminating in hydathodes. Primula prenantha has a large distribution and is uniform in appearance except in SE Tibet where ssp. morsheadiana occurs. Subspecies morsheadiana has larger, campanulate flowers rather than the tubular flowers of subspecies prenantha. The capsule varies also. Taken in isolation, subspecies morsheadiana looks to be distinct but in SE Tibet intermediates between the two exist. Images of this subspecies are shown in the later half below. Primula microloma is a white flowered form collected once on the Salween-Irrawady divide and needs to be re-examined.
