PBS Forum

Colchicums.  Label long gone

This particularly elegant form of Amaryllis belladonna is flowering for the very first time in my garden. The bulbs were given to me some years ago and were originally raised from wild collected seed. I like the faint touch of pink in the white flowers.

The first of the xAmarines is blooming. This is supposed to have been developed by the Dutch firm van Tubergen and named after their nursery at Zwanenburg House, so it is xAmarine tubergenii 'Zwanenburg'.

Love the Rhodophia bifida, flowering in scarcely a week after transition from greenhouse to outdoors, exploding into bloom triggered by the deluge

@Arnold  sorry, but that Colchicum color seems to be smart phone image correction on an amok course.
@Judy Glattstein Always a nice effect to have them synchronous - mine reacted strangely on all the strange weather and spread over several weeks in different positions

@Wylie I take your xAmarine tubergenii and raise by xAmarcrinum 'Fred Howard' - now I wish I'd ever gotten the "plant in between" back to flower, but Amarillis belladonna only ever give leaves to me besides the first year and, other than the Amarine, which seems perfectly hardy, the Amaryllis leaves suffer from hard frosts.

In the mean time, I have finally gotten Agave amica back to flowering - seems they liked the wetter and cooler summer. Staying in the color family, I've got one of my Eucomis pole-evansii

seedlings to flower size - years after the other one, so I'm surprised that this one is more whitish and less cream than its sibling. I actually like both.

Finishing with another color double - first a Hedychium deceptum

Height:	80-120 cm (2.6-3.9 ft)
Flower Colors:	red
Flower Season:	late summer to mid autumn
Climate:	USDA Zone 8-9

, far earlier than I'm used to it due ti the cold and wet August around here. But the last one is even more of a surprise for me - The timing is better than what I'm used to, but actually I thought that to be a pink form of Hesperantha coccinea

- do they sponaneously return to the main form like some variegated plants lose their variegation (or switch to full white and die) in some shoots?

Habranthus brachyandrus Cherry Pink

Very old plant not sure of the ID

Couple of more shots of the Colchicums.  I believe the white is Colchicum byzantinum Alba

Photo 1 shows that the Amaryllis belladonna bloom line passed through Blackpool on Sunday heading towards the North Pole.

There are quite a few flower spikes appearing, which is nice. Some years I get none.

The Summer was cold and wet. First week in September was hot. Always discussion of how to make Amaryllis flower. That brings me to Photo 2, which is a Hosta flower stalk. I've no doubt it is not unheard of, but seems unusual for them to have an Autumnal flush - they did and usually do flower at the end of Spring.

Another thing about Amaryllis is that they are scented.

Quote from: Martin Bohnet on September 17, 2023, 04:57:58 AM@Wylie I take your xAmarine tubergenii and raise by xAmarcrinum 'Fred Howard' - now I wish I'd ever gotten the "plant in between" back to flower, but Amarillis belladonna only ever give leaves to me besides the first year and, other than the Amarine, which seems perfectly hardy, the Amaryllis leaves suffer from hard frosts.

Easy to get leaves, hard to get flowers with Amaryllis in off conditions. If they are generally healthy, a simulated fire can prompt blooming...weed whacking the leaves near the end of the season, clearing overgrowth in the spring/summer may give sudden results!

But, as you know, a cold winter is a problem, and they perform poorly potted.

I've planted a lot of Amaryllis in the street median, which suits them well, sun, poor soils, and little competing plant growth. Some actually get substantial summer water from fog dripping off the street trees, but it doesn't affect flowering. Among the standard Amaryllis are obvious Brunsvigia hybrids, enormous fast growing bulbs, bigger inflorescences, and broader color ranges. Which is a reminder to stop babying my Brunsvigia seedlings and get them in the ground.

Re. the white-flowered selection identified as Colchicum byzantinum album,  this is now considered to be a clonal selection, and according to the new monograph by Grey-Wilson et al. (p. 459), "might all be referred to 'Innocence'. " The original stock is believed to have been sold to English growers by Van Tubergen.  The authors mention the variable pink tipping; I think coloration of colchicum flowers may be a response to temperature, as it is in many other kinds of flowers. Large colonies of 'Innocence' (received many years ago as C. b. album) are just finishing their flowering here in Oregon.It is one of the most vigorously increasing large colchicums in my garden.

Hi, very busy with planting and sowing, worried about storms (about 100 mm from september 1st, which is a bit above average for our climate, and hail like medium-sized plums, which is unusual, there were injured people for the hailstones and even human casualties because of floods),but there are some flowers.

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Narcissus obsoletus from Sicily (elegans for some)

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Narcissus deficiens (old serotinus in part, miniatus for 'Koopowitz's school', obsoletus for Flora Iberica). One of the first wild daffodils seen in Spain this late summer, on Sept 17, Northern Castellón province, Spain.

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Acis valentina


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Hannonia hesperidum

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Squilla maritima (not Drimia, nor Urginea anymore),wild in Castellón province, not far from the sea.

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The massive Squilla numidica, with bulbs bearing brick-red sheaths and reaching the size of Cantaloup melons. This is known in the US as maritima, but it is not. It was used for tests to produce rat poison,but the project was not profitable and several thousand bulbs were given / retailed to a nursery. There's a paper telling the story. It occurs wild on the Balearics, northern Africa, Greece and Lampedusa island near Tunisia, but seems to be rare or absent from Malta and Sicily, where S pancration, with white coats, occurs. 

Carlos

Hello Carlos,

Is Squilla (not Scilla with a ,c') now the new correct name for Drimia maritima?

Yet a new set of labels to be written.....

Uli 

It seems so, if no one demonstrates anything in contrary. At least the board of nomenclature has said that Squilla is sufficiently different from Scilla to be kept as a good genus.

I am doing my own research on the subject...

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Biarum tenuifolium ? Lost label

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Muscari parviflorum

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Prospero sp Turkey

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Prospero autumnale 'var latifolium'

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Narcissus cavanillesii SF268 - thanks to Dylan Hannon!!

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Narcissus broussonetii

Quote from: Carlos on September 21, 2023, 02:34:30 AM...This is known in the US as maritima, but it is not. It was used for tests to produce rat poison,but the project was not profitable and several thousand bulbs were given / retailed to a nursery. There's a paper telling the story...

Hi Carlos - I would be very interested to read that paper.  Do you know the title of the paper, or where is was published?

I don't remember when I planted the first bulbs of this fall-blooming colchicum, but each bulb has multiplied into a clump of about 15 flowers.  The stems?  tubes?  are  23 cm long (about 9 inches).

IMG_4652.jpg

I dowloaded it one or two years ago, I will look for it. Please give me an email address.

Carlos

Hi, I now remembered that my Prospero from Turkey is the plant sometimes referred to as 'Paul's titan' (Paul Christian, rareplants) as it reaches 50 tall, with bulbs more than double in size as those of 'normal' Prospero autumnale, and is offseting, a unique feature in the genus.Michael Neumann also talks about it in the PBSWiki https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/Prospero (https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/Prospero)

I have no doubt that it is an undescribed species.

20230923_192827.jpg

I was surprised to see some Crinums blooming again. They had flowered in May, and probably due to the increasing summer rain the Azores has been getting, they are now reblooming.

Colchicum actually make a very good cut flower

First time repotting in years. Some notes. The Scilla madeirensis grown from PBS seed. This is its second potting-up. I noticed the leaves lasted well into early summer. Now I see the roots are fleshy even in late September. The bulb is purple (sorry about focus). My tag says "harvested 5/15/19 RdeV 2 seeds per pot sown 11/18." I guess that's November 18 of 2019 I sowed the seed. The 4 year old bulb is about 2 inches diameter. I would try to get a better photo but they are all up-potted now already. 

I harvested some Dichelostemma capitata from bulb boxes where they had been crowding out smaller bulbs and were infested with Nothoscordum gracile. The flowering-sized corms I replanted in the front yard where they can spread their long, fat leaves with abandon and not crowd out anything special. I noticed the largest sized corms often have a hole, like an asymmetrical donut. I believe this is where last year's flower stalk was. Originally from Telos, these grow vigorously and put on a show of  tall wavy purple pom poms that attract bees. 

A pot of bulbs I've had for years bloomed for the first time this August. I looked at the wiki and clearly what I've got is not what my label says. Looks like I've got a self-sown invader from accidental seed-scattering. Habranthus robustus would be my first guess. I'll use a photo of the August blooms. Those already set seed. I noticed the 2nd to last one set seed too although it had no siblings to cross-pollenate. 

Blooming now are the first of the Oxalis and the first of the Nerine filifolia.   

Also blooming now are my white Amaryllis hybrids. Those are having their best year ever. I just noticed that this early-blooming Oxalis (I've lost its tag) is also now blooming just as vigorously in the sand box where it sat a few years back, in a corner not seen until I cleaned up that box. The other early-blooming Oxalis just opened yesterday: Oxalis livida. 

I have not verified any of those species names' accuracy nor spelling. I'm sure at least one is out of date. 

Quote from: Judy Glattstein on September 24, 2023, 10:07:02 AMColchicum actually make a very good cut flower

How? wouldn't you cut right through the tube??

@gastil better rely on the forum software to shrink the images - we're not so low on storage that we need to trade stamps :P

Most of the day went into sorting EX07 (it just wasn't possible to get through it during a bad week at work), and most of the packages will be on the road tomorrow, but I had to take a breath from time to time:

Crocus time has started: Crocus kotschyanus

and a nice big white one I'm not really sure about, followed by Crocus banaticus

with some slug damage and the Hybrid "Autumn Fantasy".

But it's not all crocus: There's also Nerine masoniorum

and Zingiber mioga

Height:	45-80 cm (1.5-2.6 ft)
Flower Colors:	yellow, pink
Flower Season:	early autumn to mid autumn
Life form:	deciduous rhizome
Climate:	USDA Zone 7-10

- of the latter one I sometimes miss the flower period, but this time there were a few pretty exposed specimen to shoot...

Martin, just cut close to ground. Unlike crocus the colchicum don't fall apart.

"  Is there some herb or something I can grow"

Try chrysanthemums. They are easy to find this time of year here.

Mark Mazer
Hertford, NC

Hi, Gastil, yes, Autonöe madeirensis grows in shady places and it seems to keep growing well into the summer. The temperature difference between summer and winter is faded by effect of the ocean, and this seems to have been set into the 'biological clock' of the plant.

They are robust plants which can make bulbs the size of a small plum in their first year if you keep watering until it's just too hot. I discovered this by neglecting the plugs.And the fleshy roots, similar to those of Oncostema (S. peruviana group), also surprised me. It has many traits which show that it is not a real Scilla  including fleshy, berry-like capsules, if I recall correctly.

I have just sown its Canarian relative, A latifolia, I hope it does only half as well. I had to sell many extra bulbs of madeirensis and still repotted a fozen or so..

Carlos

More Prospero...

A white form from Zakynthos (Zante,) island, Greece

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Prospero corsicum, Corsica and Sardinia
 Perhaps the tiniest Prospero.

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And the first Narcissus × perezlarae (cavanillesii × deficiens)

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Carlos

Cyclamen hederafolium
Colchicum spp.

I'm interpreting the forum topic 'current photographs' as not just blooms. September here sees few blooms, just a frenzy of procrastinated repotting. With today's drizzle, pots not under cover are now officially going to wait yet another year in their old soil.

Yesterday's work included Wurmbea stricta and Babiana rubrocyanea. The latter grew four years in their two tiny seed pots, 4 seeds each, producing four big corms each with several offsets growing higher on the stems. The big corms wriggled their way down through the tiny drainage slats and into the sand of their mini-plunge baskets. The seeds came from PBS SX 11-312 donated by Dee Foster in 2019. These Babiana seedlings begin to senesce late April but retain some green in their leaves longer, depending on weather. 

My Wurmbea came to me as 2 bulbs donated by Lynn Makela of Florida in 2012 for PBS BX 308 item 26. My accession record tells me that BX was in April and I waited until that fall to pot them. Here these bloom in February and seed ripens late April. These bloomed reliably in that same plastic pot, tucked into a larger flowerpot where they got more water than most of my collection. I re-potted in May 2020, according to my records. Curiously, I actually repotted something before the last day possible. Oh, right, that was lockdown and I was zooming work while, below camera level, I was repotting.  ;) In the bloom pic from February notice the tiny insect, maybe an ant, in the middle flower.

Thank you @Carlos for the Autonöe madeirensis name update for my Scilla madeirensis. 
Thank you @Martin Bohnet for the LOL. No postage-stamp-sized pics today. 

Amazing! I wonder if you would like to swap some seeds of Wurmbea if you get some.

Carlos

Alas, dear @Carlos and PBS friends, although I do often collect, store and label seed from that and other species, I do not ever seem to find the time to CLEAN and mail all that seed. 

I did just now locate the envelope of Wurmbea seed I collected May 2023. I now state my noble intention of actually getting that to Jan for her next SX. Those who know me will not bet good odds of that actually happening. 

Perhaps I should post pics of the years-worth of envelopes, bags, boxes, shelves and nearly every horizontal surface in this house where I have piled seed collected but not cleaned nor mailed. No need to rename this forum topic as 'Seed Hoarders Anonymous' since, technically, those would be photos taken in September.  Here's a photo of just the envelopes that sit in a shoe box near my keyboard. 

The seed-cleaning is not the only the bottleneck. Rodney from SIGNA has kindly offered each year that I could send him un-cleaned collections which he volunteers to clean for their seed exchange. But, alas, getting stuff into the mail seems to be above my current capabilities. Sigh. I might try this year. I know Jan's deadline is Oct 15 and I travel the 11th, so I'll aim to get these in the mail before then. 

I understand. I would also gladly clean the seeds up, but anyway I am not in the US. I hope someone offers Wurmbea in the future.

Carlos

As to the mysterious hieroglyphs in Gastil's photo, some people believe they're a pictorial representation of a garden, a map. Others that they're a lost graphical naming system for plants. The truth is we will never really know.

Remember me complaining about not getting Amaryllis belladonna to flower? Ah, the world of plant psychology - sometimes it's enough to shame them into action. This is one from Marian Vanneste, EX05.

Let's see how my other psychological trick will perform - i'm storing the Amorphophallus konjak together with a pack of noodles made from them....