Fritillaria striata and F. pluriflora

Jane McGary janemcgary@earthlink.net
Thu, 22 Mar 2012 15:18:58 PDT
Nathan asked

>Hi Jane,
>
>This is very interesting.  What other hybrid California frits do you grow?

In addition to the two mentioned, I have apparent hybrids between F. 
liliacea (seed parent) and F. agrestis, and a hybrid of unspecified 
parentage sent me awhile back by Ed Rustvold from the Bay Area, which 
has buds this year. I think I also have F. gentneri, a variable 
natural hybrid between F. affinis and F. recurva, from seed of a 
natural population on private land, but the plants aren't big enough 
to flower quite yet.

The American Fritillaria species fall into fairly obvious related 
groups with similar bulbs and foliage, though within a group the 
flowers may be rather different. The main ones are those typified by 
F. affinis and by F. biflora. The striata-pluriflora pair seems to be 
an outlier to these. F. glauca also seems outside these groups but 
perhaps it is close to F. falcata. Of course, I don't have a DNA lab 
so this is merely superficial observation.

I looked something up in the Jepson Manual today and noticed that all 
the Fritillaria species for which an evaluation of cultivation is 
given are listed as "difficult." This is not quite true, especially 
if you live in California!

Jane McGary
Portland, Oregon, USA




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