Primula heydei Watt.

Herbs perennial, forming dense tufts of numerous rosettes, occasionally producing short leafy stolons. Leaves forming a rosette; petiole indistinct or occasionally nearly as long as leaf blade; leaf blade narrowly oblong to lanceolate or oblanceolate, 5--10 X 1.5--3 mm, abaxially densely yellow farinose, adaxially sparsely glandular, base attenuate, margin denticulate above middle, apex acute to acuminate. Scapes initially inconspicuous, hidden in leaves, to 2.5--4.5(--6) cm in fruit, 1--3(--8)-flowered; bracts 2 or 3, lanceolate, to 3 mm, apex acute. Flowers sessile, heterostylous. Calyx tubular to tubular-campanulate, 3--4 mm, farinose, parted slightly below middle; lobes lanceolate, apex acute. Corolla dark reddish purple, exannulate; tube 7--9 mm; limb 5--10 mm wide; lobes obovate, deeply emarginate. Pin flowers: stamens ca. 2 mm above base of corolla tube; style slightly exceeding middle of tube. Thrum flowers with positions reciprocal. Capsule cylindric, nearly as long as calyx. Fl. Jun.

W. Smith and H. R. Fletcher (Trans. & Proc. Bot. Soc. Edinburgh 33: 238. 1942) cited all flowering specimens as Primula minutissima and all specimens in fruit as P. heydei. There is no doubt that they are the same species in different stages of development.

Damp meadows; 3700--5200 m. W Xizang (Ngari Xian) [India, Nepal, Pakistan].