Description:

• Herbs, annual or perennial, occasionally becoming slightly woody
• Leaves alternate, opposite, sometimes whorled or 3-nate, simple, entire; stipules 0
• Flowers regular, bisexual, often heterostylous, in racemes or solitary and axillary
• Calyx 5-fid or -partite, rarely 4-7-lobed, free or ± adnate to ovary below
• Corolla rotate or subcampanulate, 4- or 5-fid or -partite or hypocrateriform, with a spreading, 5(rarely 4-7)-partite limb
• Stamens as many as corolla lobes, arising from tube opposite lobes or from lobes, sometimes with alternating staminodes
• Ovary superior (except in Samolus), 1-locular, with a free, central placenta and few to many ovules; style 1, distyly occurs sometimes
• Fruit a capsule
• Seeds usually angular and sometimes with narrow wings

Nomenclature:

• Primulaceae
  • Harvey & Wright: 426 (1906)
  • Dyer: 9 (1963)
  • Friedrich-Holzhammer: 1 (1967)
  • Guillaumet: 1 (1981)
  • Peltier: 3 (1981)
  • Kupicha: 184 (1983)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera 20-22, species ± 800-1 000, mostly in temperate regions of northern hemisphere
• Southern Africa: Genera 3, species 8

References:

• DYER, R.A. 1963. Primulaceae. Flora of southern Africa 26
• FRIEDRICH-HOLZHAMMER, M. 1967. Primulaceae. Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 104
• GUILLAUMET, J.L. 1981. Primulacées. Flore des Mascareignes 114
• HARVEY, W.H. & WRIGHT, C.H. 1906. Primulaceae. Flora capensis 4,1
• KUPICHA, F.K. 1983. Primulaceae. Flora zambesiaca 7
• PELTIER, M. 1981. Primulacées. Flore de Madagascar et des Comores 162

Resources:

• Key to Primulaceae genera

• Primulaceae genera: