Sternbergia colchiciflora

[Carlos]

Hi

I am mainly interested in Amaryllidaceae, as some already know.

Regarding Sternbergia, with plants being often self esterile so seeds are not always available,  and genus being included in CITES so this makes bulbs not easily found (for all species which are not lutea, maybe sicula). 

I live in Spain and we have lutea (thoughjt to have been introduced, always sterile) and colchiciflora (native). 

Colchiciflora gros here in two types of habitat, semiarid areas near Madrid with continental climate (very hot and dry summers and cold winters), on gypsum-rich soils, sometimes under shade of Quercus (evergreen Quercus), and mountain meadows in more humid conditions, on humus-rich ground on limestone, mostly in northern exposures.

That has shocked me ever since I knew about the plants growing on gypsum, but I can cope with "ecological amplitude". 

Our plants flower from late sumemr to early autumn depending on rains and the fecundated ovary remains hidden until late winter, when the fruits like tiny melons emerge, remaining almost at ground level, the seeds ripening in late April to late May. Leaves are usually quite sspiralled, looking quite strange when seen in the field (to someone not used to Albuca spiralis and other Cape plants). The edge is SMOOTH.

I felt almost at ease with that.

Then I had a look at the PBS wiki and found two enigmatic sentences:

"Leaves are finely ciliate indeed"

(taken from S. schubertii) "Seed pods appear soon after to mature in a matter of weeks, in the same way Sternbergia colchiciflora does".

Then some habitat photos by Angelo Porcelli at the Gargano peninsula (Apulia, south-western Italy) are shown.

I asked Angelo and though he has not the plant in cultivatiuon anymore he told me that it occurs at 800 m in cool and moist beech trees (Fagus sylvatica) forest, the only site for beeches in southern Italy (except Sardinia and Sicily), and that the bulbs don't make it through the summer when brought to the lowlands. He could not confirm about the time of ripening of the seeds, but did confirm about the cilia. He has not better photos, unfortunately, so they can't be seen when zooming in on the image.

https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/Sternbergia/Sternbergia_colchiciflora_leaves_AP.jpg

https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/Sternbergia/Sternbergia_colchiflora1_AM.jpg


Her you can see plants from the Crimean peninsula and France, they are the same as ours:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/105286436?fbclid=IwAR3l53kg2-9oRd49pMjZ-dfISiBW7VsAyDrM8n_gjO7_vUGxw48ekH5ZN94

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/107728731?fbclid=IwAR3-9xYXVRmQJkZr9st0UZkqtdoGFAjw1iWcHLfDuVcaq_m683IiXkpEAI0


After all this literature, my questions are:

Has someone seen the Gargano plant in habitat, os has it in cultivation, and can confirm or deny the information above?

And for anyone who has the plant, would you swap seeds or bulbs (bulbs only within the EU)?

Many thanks

Carlos Jiménez