colchicum byzantinum & friends

Jane McGary janemcgary@earthlink.net
Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:22:29 PDT
It has been mentioned that the name Colchicum parnassicum is 
misapplied in cultivation to
C. laetum hort. However, the Archibalds offer seed of a documented 
collection of C. parnassicum, which I am growing though it is not 
mature enough to flower yet, so in spite of being misapplied in 
gardens it is apparently a valid name -- at least at some point in 
the unsatisfactory nomenclature of this genus.

I just inventoried my bulbs and find I have about 120 accessions of 
Colchicum, but these include some hybrids and some as yet 
unidentified ones grown from wild-collected seed, as well as multiple 
wild sources for the same species, so in this collection there are 
probably about 70 actual distinct species as now recognized, not 
counting the named horticultural selections. If I had to pick just 
two for a desert-island garden, I think the big one would be C. 
speciosum 'Album' and the small one C. cupanii ssp. bertolonii.

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon, USA


More information about the pbs mailing list