Plant Profiles

Primula ‘Fife Yellow’

For two generations the Chalmers family, father William and son David, ran a nursery in Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, Scotland which produced a number of d ouble primroses. One of these was ‘Fife Yellow’ named by David Chalmers. It is a rich yellow but difficult to describe since it varies in colour during flowering between a rich ochre to a lighter yellow. It has quite an orangey blotch at the base of the petal. These photographs are of the plant in my garden at the end of March 2014. The orange base to the petal can be clearly seen.

Barbara Shaw in her “Book of Primroses” has a botanical painting of it in its lighter colour phase. She speculates on its origin saying that Mr Smith of Newry sent Rev. McMurtrie who lived at Skene in Aberdeeenshire a double “orange-yellow” which he named ‘Maize Yellow’. Barbara Shaw speculated whether it could be the same as ‘Fife Yellow’ since Mary McMurtrie said it was very alike when she saw Mrs Shaw’s painting, and the McMurtries and the Chalmers were in roughly the same area of Scotland.