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 stenodonta is related to Primula poissonii, and the taxonomy is confused, but it is a splendid addition to the candelabra primulas. It has whorls of very bright, rich pink flowers, with a darker pink stripe along each petal and with a yellow eye to the flower. It flowers a week or so earlier than P. poissonii, and has larger flowers on arching, longer pedicels, so the total impact is greater. There are other differences, including the lack of a significant notch in each petal and the details of the leaf shape.