Primula sieboldii produces white, lavender, pink, and lilac flower colors and with a wide variety of petal forms on neat clumps that slowly increase. One of the few Primulas that naturalize in Chicago-area gardens, it prefers a shady moist position but its ability to enter summer dormancy makes it remarkably tolerant of heat and drought. It is free of most insect and disease pests. Primula sieboldii is native to swampy meadowlands in Japan, eastern Siberia, Korea, and Manchuria, where it experiences incredibly cold winters and seasonally flooded soils alternating with summer time heat and droughts – an environment similar to that of Chicago. For more than 400 years this species has held an almost cult-like status with the gardeners of Japan.