Favorite Yellow Flowered Bulbs--TOW

Mary Sue Ittner msittner@mcn.org
Thu, 22 Jan 2004 20:46:11 PST
Dear All,

No one has nominated Romulea as one of their favorite yellow flowered 
bulbs. I said I'd have trouble just picking five and hoped people would 
pick some of my other favorites that didn't make my list and many have been 
chosen. But since Romulea has not been mentioned yet I'd just like to add a 
plug for them. I grow quite a few with more getting closer to the blooming 
stage.  R. citrina, R. diversiformis, and R. flava have been pictured on 
the wiki in the past and some of these flowers are quite charming. I have 
just added pictures of two more. One is Romulea tortuosa. This one can have 
wonderful black markings (which might make Jennifer view it with more 
interest), but the one the came with my Jim Robinett bulbs is the one that 
used to be called ssp. aurea which is unmarked. This bulb is fragrant, 
rather like some of the Narcissus and I am not especially fond of that 
fragrance. Alas mine does not have spiral leaves like some found in the 
wild. In spite of those reservations I am fond of this species and 
appreciate any flower that blooms in December and January each year. It 
also has a really interesting looking corm. I need to photograph that when 
it is dormant. I'd like to see more corm pictures on the wiki, especially 
since often that is an important feature in identification.

The second one I added is Romulea luteoflora which opened yesterday 
blooming for the first time from Silverhill Seed just in time  for our 
yellow flowered theme. I think it is smashing! It is a buttercup yellow 
with black markings in the center and interesting coloring on the back of 
the petals.

http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

I have gotten some Mediterranean Romuleas from Jane McGary the past couple 
of years and like those as well. They aren't yellow however. One I got from 
her this year is also blooming right now, Romulea bulbocodium Zahnii. I 
searched and can't find that as a subspecies name anywhere although I see 
that it is sold by that name by some. Regardless, it is a very nice plant 
too and I have added it to the European and Med. Romulea page:
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… 
20Romuleas

I hope that wraps. The title is a bit long. Unfortunately now that we have 
made subdirectories on the wiki for a lot of genera we had many photos for 
the urls for a lot of pictures are not going to wrap since they are much 
longer.

You can always access both Romulea pages from:
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

Mary Sue


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