The candelabra primulas (the Proliferae section) are wonderful plants, originating from China and the Himalaya, for woodland or damp, even extremely wet, places. They make clumps of strong leaves, deciduous in some species and persisting through the winter in others, and then send up their tall stems. At intervals up the stems there are whorls of ten or so flowers, each ring opening in succession, perhaps one every five or six days, . As there can be up to six, even seven, whorls, that gives an exceptional flowering period. So there can be a mass of colour – and that colour can be brilliant orange or yellow, red, pink, white, even dark maroon.

Primula japonica 'Apple Blossom' is a robust candelabra primula, one of the earliest to flower, with about six whorls of large flowers, just as its name implies, a lovely pale pink, with a red eye. The foliage dies down for the winter, reappearing in early spring.