Merendera is a small cormous European and Asian genus in the Colchicaceae family sometimes included in Colchicum. They differ by having no tube, just six separate segments. Merendera is a winter growing genus with funnel shaped white, pink, or purple flowers. Some species are fall blooming and some bloom in the spring.
Merendera candidissima is a rare plant in Armenia and Azerbaijan forests. Photo by John Lonsdale. According to the Kew checklist this species is a synonym for Merendera trigyna but this species name is still found on other data bases.
Merendera montana is the most often grown. It has early fall blooming flowers which rest on the ground followed by linear leaves. It is found in meadows and rocky slopes in Spain and Portugal. Photos by John Lonsdale. The Kew checklist has this species as a synonym for Colchicum bulbocodium subsp. bulbocodium.
Merendera sobolifera is a near-eastern species which blooms in late winter or early spring. It was in bloom on March 15, 2008 in the zone 7 Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, garden of Jim McKenney. The first image shows the unusual corm(against a quarter inch grid): it resembles a cluster of Gloriosa corms. In the middle image if you look carefully you can see under the colored portions of the bloom the basal portions of each tepal; they look like threads. This is the salient characteristic of the genus Merendera. Just under the colored portion of the tepal they are hooked together in this species. I gently pulled the tepals apart to get the third image, where you can see the "hooks" which hold them together.
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