Species
+

Primula veris L.

Cowslip, Cowslip Primrose, English cowslip, Kukówczé rãkawice

Climate known 38 photographs
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Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Primula veris, the cowslip, common cowslip, or cowslip primrose, is a herbaceous perennial flowering plant in the primrose family Primulaceae. The species is native throughout most of temperate Europe and western Asia, and although absent from more northerly areas including much of northwest Scotland, it reappears in northernmost Sutherland and Orkney and in Scandinavia. This species frequently hybridizes with other Primulas such as the common primrose Primula vulgaris to form false oxlip which is often confused with true oxlip, a much rarer plant.

Text from Wikipedia, “Primula veris”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Primula

Primula is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Primulaceae. They include the primrose, a familiar wildflower of banks and verges. Other common species are P. auricula (auricula), P. veris (cowslip), and P. elatior (oxlip). More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Primula”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Primulaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Denmark, Finland, Great Britain +42
Wild records
443 in range· 131 open

At a glance

Warmest month
23°C
Jul, mean day; nights 14 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
850mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Oct 82 mm (CHELSA)
Light
5–35DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (October to January and May to August in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 850 mm a year, wettest October at 82 mm, driest February at 58 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 5 to 35 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -8.1 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Pinguicula suaveolens T.Schube; Primula canescens Opiz; Primula discolor Schur ex Pax; Primula montana Reut.; Primula montana Reut. ex Nyman and 1 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (October to January and May to August in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (598 mm of 850 mm) takes 8 months, October to January and May to August. Mean temperature moves 15.5 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to February and April to July.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 850 mm a year, wettest October at 82 mm, driest February at 58 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

850 mm a year at the habitat, 598 mm of it October to January and May to August. Wettest month October at 82 mm, driest February at 58 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 655 mm to 1275 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 5 to 35 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 5 to 35 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 3, the highest 90th-percentile month 40).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -8.1 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -8.1 °C, the absolute minimum -18.5 °C, about 75 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 34.3 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -0.2 °C in January (across the envelope cells -4.6 °C to 2.3 °C), warmest day 22.6 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -8.1 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 59 to 68% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 5 °C in Jan to 23 °C in Jul; mean night from -0 °C in Jan to 14 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 850 mm of rain a year, most in Oct. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 374 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -18.5 °C and the 99th-percentile day 34.3 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost34.3° 99th-percentile day (undated)-18.5° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125mm rainDLI 5–35RH 59–68 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 374 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C5 / 2–86 / 4–910 / 7–1213 / 10–1517 / 15–1920 / 18–2323 / 20–2622 / 19–2519 / 16–2214 / 12–179 / 7–126 / 3–9
Night °C-0 / -5–20 / -4–22 / -1–44 / 2–69 / 6–1012 / 10–1314 / 12–1614 / 12–1611 / 9–138 / 5–104 / 0–61 / -3–3
Rain mm71 / 47–10158 / 38–8365 / 46–9758 / 44–10372 / 53–11673 / 53–10671 / 51–10172 / 53–10271 / 55–10782 / 58–12377 / 57–11780 / 54–118
DLI6 / 4–1111 / 9–1719 / 16–2528 / 25–3234 / 32–3735 / 33–3935 / 32–4030 / 26–3521 / 18–2713 / 11–187 / 5–125 / 3–9
RH %67 / 62–6964 / 61–6762 / 59–6460 / 58–6260 / 58–6260 / 57–6259 / 56–6260 / 57–6362 / 60–6464 / 62–6667 / 64–6968 / 63–70

Each figure is the median across the 374 grid cells holding the 435 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 872:3695 (46.375, 4.775). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -18.5 °C, 1st-percentile night -8.1 °C, 99th-percentile day 34.3 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 374 distinct grid cells holding the 435 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 872:3695 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 46.50_5.000, lapse-corrected +27 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 300 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeDenmark, Finland, Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, France, Spain, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania, Yugoslavia, Belarus, Baltic States, Krym, Central European Russia, East European Russia, North European Russia, South European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Ukraine, Altay, Buryatiya, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Tuva, West Siberia, Khabarovsk, Kazakhstan, Kirgizistan, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Iran, Turkey, Xinjiang· introduced: Primorye, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Québec, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Vermont, Maryland
Extinct inAlgeria· recorded as extinct by WCVP: history, not habitat; no records are tested against these regions
Kew's description“perennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker45.79, 4.881 · in the densest population, 260 records (59% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 443 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 131 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 211 km away. 8 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 443 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Primula verisPrimula verisPrimula verisPrimula verisPrimula verisPrimula verisPrimula verisPrimula veris

Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0 (2); (c) SteveM4560, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Pavel Kacl, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4).

Photographs: iNaturalist and GBIF media did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Primula veris, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Expansion of mass-flowering crops leads to transient pollinator dilution and reduced wild plant pollination
Andrea Holzschuh, Carsten F. Dormann, Teja Tscharntke, Ingolf Steffan‐Dewenter (2011) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
The draft genome of Primula veris yields insights into the molecular basis of heterostyly
Michael Nowak, Giancarlo Russo, Ralph Schlapbach, Cuong Nguyen Huu (2015) · Genome biology
The effects of grassland management on plant performance and demography in the perennial herb Primula veris
Rein Brys, Hans Jacquemyn, Patrick Endels, Geert De Blust (2004) · Journal of Applied Ecology
Exploring wild edible flowers as a source of bioactive compounds: New perspectives in horticulture
Sonia Demasi, Matteo Caser, Dario Donno, Simone Ravetto Enri (2021) · Folia Horticulturae
An Experimental Approach to Part of the Calcicole Problem
R. S. Clymo (1962) · Journal of Ecology
Demographic stochasticity in population fragments of the declining distylous perennial Primula veris (Primulaceae)
Marc Kéry, Diethart Matthies, Bernhard Schmid (2003) · Basic and Applied Ecology

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Primula 3 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence search API
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: filled 2026-09-20
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media did not answercarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: api.gbif.org not asked: offline re-derivation
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 12 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.