English: Primrose bank at Trelowarren The Primrose is a herbaceous perennial plant, low growing, to 10–30 cm tall, with a basal rosette of leaves. The leaves are 5–25 cm long and 2–6 cm broad with an irregularly margin, and a usually short leaf stem. The flowers are 2–4 cm in diameter, borne singly on a slender stem, pale yellow, white, red, or purple.

It flowers in early spring, one of the earliest spring flowers in much of Europe. In appropriate conditions, it can cover the ground in open woods and shaded hedgerows.

In more populated areas it has sometimes suffered from over-collection and theft so that few natural displays of Primroses in abundance can now be found. To prevent excessive damage to the species, picking of Primroses or the removal of Primrose plants from the wild is illegal in the UK.