PRIMULACEAE
Annual or perennial herbs, sometimes suffruticose, often with rhizomes, corms or tubers. Leaves simple, basal/radical in basal rosettes or cauline, alternate, opposite or whorled, exstipulate, entire or variously lobed, sessile to petiolate. Flowers actinomorphic, rarely zygpmorphic, bisexual, (4-) 5 (-6 or -9)- merous, usually hypogynous, red blue or white, dimorphic; solitary or in spikes, racemes, panicles or umbels, usually with bracts, scape usually well developed. Bracteoles absent. Calyx gamosepalous, 1/3-2/3rd cleft, usually 5-lobed, persistent. Corolla gamopetalous, campanulate, rotate or infundibuliform, usually 5-lobed; sometimes absent. Stamens as many as and opposite corolla lobes, +/- epipetalous, occasionally with scale-like staminodes; filaments free or connate into a tube at base; anthers bithecous, dehiscence by longitudinal slits, introrse. Carpels 5, syncarpous, ovary superior, rarely semi-inferior, unilocular, placentation free-central, sometimes basal, ovules many; style simple, long or short; stigma minute. Fruit a capsule, dehiscing by 5 (-10) valves, rarely circumscissile or indehiscent. Seeds many to few.
57 genera and about 2788 species
