(Duby) Govaerts
Description
Androsace sarmentosa subsp. primuloides is a mat-forming rock-jasmine of the western and central Himalaya, recorded from India, China, Nepal and Pakistan, with about 122 occurrences in GBIF. It grows on open rocky slopes, ledges, stony pastures and the margins of alpine meadows, mainly in the subalpine and lower alpine zones between roughly 2500 and 4000 m, favouring well-drained, sunny sites. The photographs from Chanta in West Nepal at about 2700 m in June and from the Valley of Flowers in Garhwal at about 3250 m in September capture the plant across its altitudinal range from early summer flowering to late-season fruiting in the high meadows.
The plant forms loose mats by means of slender, leafy stolons or runners (hence sarmentosa) that root at the nodes to produce new rosettes. Each rosette consists of oblong to spathulate leaves clothed, especially when young, in silky white or silvery hairs that give the cushions a downy appearance. From the rosettes arise short, hairy scapes bearing an umbel of several flowers subtended by a whorl of bracts; the flowers have a five-lobed, salver-shaped corolla, rose-pink with a yellow or orange eye and a constricted throat, recalling a small primrose, as the epithet primuloides suggests. The fruit is a small capsule with few seeds.
Androsace belongs to the Primulaceae and is closely allied to Primula, distinguished by its smaller flowers with a constricted corolla throat; the stoloniferous, mat-building habit of this taxon contrasts with the tight cushions of many high-alpine relatives. Long popular in alpine and rock gardening for its free-flowering pink umbels, it propagates readily from its rooting runners. Widely distributed and locally abundant, the subspecies is not of conservation concern.
Author: (Duby) Govaerts · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Pakistan, Annotated Checklist of the Flowering Plants of Nepal, Smith and Lowe's monograph of Androsace, Richards' Primula and its allies