Herbs, annual, biennial and perennial; stems erect or creeping. Leaves radical or cauline, simple, alternate, opposite, or verticillate, rarely pinnately lobed, estipulate. Flowers in racemes, axillary, or superposed verticils, bisexual, usually actinomorphic; calyx persistent, 4- to 9-. usually 5-lobed; corolla rotate, salverform or infundibuliform, sometimes subcampanulate, imbricate in bud, the limb 4- to 9-lobed; stamens as many as the corolla-lobes and opposite them, inserted on the tube; staminodes alternate with the stamens, rarely present; ovary superior, glabrous or pubescent, 1-locular; ovules many, the placentation free-central. Seeds small, many, the endosperm copious.
Twenty-two genera and about 1,000 species; mainly distributed in the Northern Hemisphere, a few in the Tropics and the Southern Hemisphere; five genera and forteen species in Taiwan.
Chen, F.-H., C.-M. Hu, Y.-Y. Fang, C.-Z. Cheng, Y.-C. Yang & R.-F. Huang. 1989. Primulaceae (1), Lysimachieae-Primuleae. In F.-H. Chen & C.-M. Hu (eds.), Flora Reipublicae Popularis Sinicae. Vol. 59(1). Science Press, Beijing. 217 pp.
Hu, C.-M. & S. Kelso. 1996. Primulaceae. In Z. Y. Wu & P. H. Raven (eds.), Flora of China, Myrsinaceae through Loganiaceae, Vol. 15. Science Press, Beijing and Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, pp 39-189.
