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 secundiflora looks like a member of the Sikkimensis section, with a couple of whorls of flowers, each with a short stem, so that the flowers hang down. But it is in the candelabra (Proliferae) section, and its (rare) hybridising habits confirm that this is correct. It has evergreen rosettes of quite small leaves, and upright stems with red-pink flowers and distinctive dark/light striped calyces. These are seed-raised plants from garden stock.