Primula elatior (L.) L.
Oxlip
Oxlip is a native woodland primula with a famously restricted British range, confined to ancient woods and copses on the heavy chalky boulder clay of East Anglia, chiefly Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex, where it can carpet the ground locally but is nationally scarce. From a rosette of crinkled, primrose-like leaves it sends up slender stems, usually 10 to 30cm tall, each bearing a one-sided, nodding cluster of pale yellow, tubular flowers that all tend to face the same way.
About
Oxlip is a native woodland primula with a famously restricted British range, confined to ancient woods and copses on the heavy chalky boulder clay of East Anglia, chiefly Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex, where it can carpet the ground locally but is nationally scarce. From a rosette of crinkled, primrose-like leaves it sends up slender stems, usually 10 to 30cm tall, each bearing a one-sided, nodding cluster of pale yellow, tubular flowers that all tend to face the same way. It blooms in early spring, around April and May.
It is a true indicator of long-established woodland, favouring damp, base-rich soils in dappled shade. The true oxlip is distinguished from the cowslip, whose deeper yellow flowers nod in all directions, and from the false oxlip, a primrose-cowslip hybrid. Its early flowers are an important resource for emerging queen bumblebees and other spring pollinators, and it is best suited to shaded woodland-floor and woodland-edge plantings rather than open meadows.
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