Four small lavender flowers like trumpetson a dark green "cabbage" -- there are only a few species of flowers bloomsin early spring in the mountains, andPrimula moupinensis is one of them, known as the "spring messenger".

The name labels its locality, Ya'an Baoxing. In 1869, a French priest Armand David during his time in Ya'an, discovered and nameditBaoxing primrose (the original subspecies) and Baoxing big-leaf primrose, both rare and exotic flowers.

For more than 100 years since then, no one has picked the Primula moupinensis, and only one specimen exists in the Paris Museum of Natural History worldwide, so much so that many scholars thought it had become extinct. Today, scientific research has proven that, in addition to Ya'an, itis also found sporadically in Luding, Kangding, Dujiangyan and other placesin Sichuan.