PBS Forum

Hi, very nice! I have one arundanum about to flower, and fruits in another one I was sent from near Seville.

I begin to think that those who claim that arundanum is a subspecirs of tenuifolium are right.

Carlos

I was puzzled to find many small Alliums growing on loose calcareous pebbles on the highest peak of Mallorca island. I also ran out of water, lost my cap, ruined my shoes, nearly had a 20 kg loose stone to crush my leg,  got entangled in the local subspecies of Smilax aspera, got mauled by another friendly bush, Calicotome spinosa, and got several blisters and a black toenail for six months. But it was great.

Back to the Allium, they were developing their first leaf after the first rains of September and I took five just to see what they were.

One is in bloom now and though it should be roseum, those unequal, pointed teoals and wide leaves are odd. 

Allium melananthum, Cartagena, Spain




Allium acutiflorum, Monaco

Eucrosia bicolor



Allium cyrilli



'Southern Allium ampeloprasum', which is a tetraploid, smaller that was typified as Allium ampeloprasum L., a hexaploid up to 1,8p m tall, and sterile





Allium commutatum, a coastal species which lacks a 'ball-like' developing inflorescence.





What I finally identified as Allium polyanthum, possibly a diploid, also from near the sea, with ball-like young inflorescences but only the size of s finger tip.




Aglione di Valdichiana, an heirloom cultivar from Tuscany which is a leek, but forms big cloves like garlic, and that's the part used. First year to bloom, but it seems a bit intermediate between commutatum and 'southern ampeloprasum'. 



Carlos

Hi, the false one (from Château Pérouse) is going to flower for me in its second year, I will show it.

Carlos

Hi, Jan, you should ask to be shown pallida, you will check that it is not the same. 

Yes, David, everything goes to x germanica. You should download Maretta Colasante's book Iridaceae present in Italy (editricesapienza.it
https://www.editricesapienza.it › ...PDF
Iridaceae presenti in Italia Iridaceae Present in Italy), it's both in Italian and English, has the 'right' amount of technical / scientific information, and I thought it splitted too much, but after talking to Italian collectors it seems that it's true that there are several microendemisms in truly wild ground (sabina, setina, marsica, calabra...). They could have originated in cultivation in ancient times, but have survived in the wild (this is my thought, not Colasante's that I remember).

And also yes, plants are helpless towards human confrontations, they just grow where they grow. The war in Syria seems to be preserving their Oncocyclus. Now poachers are heading to Armenia and Georgia....

Carlos

Hi, oh, yes, POWO again. It's great to discuss these subjects, though it's the third or fourth time for me in the last weeks.


POWO is not always right. It is wrong this time. I guess WFO is quoting POWO.

I have the plant from Malta, it's not pallida, which has silvery, papery bracts in anthesis and does not lose the leaves in the summer and is far more cold tolerant, and less vigorous. As other bearded irises from the coldereastern Mediterranean, it grows in spring and summer. I have been told by Zuzana Caspers, the head of Pruhonice garden in the Czech Republic that sicula is not hardy there, but pallida is.

I have been sent photos of mesopotamica from Palestine and Lebanon, and it is the same plant as in Malta, and it is not x germanica, which is a mostly sterile plant with 2n=44.


Sicula has 48 chromosomes, is fertile and gives seeds the size of a small chickpea, which germinate in the second autumn after ripening. I have seedlings.


Plants in Northern Lebanon



Plants in Palestine



Carlos

Iris lutescens, dark purple clone



Iris paradoxa



Moraea sisyrinchium. Western plants (in which the type belongs) are different to plants found from Corfu to Turkey and Palestine, which lack the yellow patch and have the white area mottled with purple. In our plants the mottling is only inside or at the mouth of the falls, and 99% of times with the orange,-yellow spot and nectar guide.





Allium cyrilli from one of the rediscovered populations in Spain.



Allium melananthum, a stunning plant from arid areas in SE Spain. I could see it in the wild last March and check the unique, long-stalked bulblets (see March photos). The plants grow in pockets among calcareous rocks and I think the runners leave the bulbs far away from the mother plant, so they will not compete for room and water. One of my favourite Iberian Alliums.



Allium moly subsp. glaucescens. More text to come



Carlos

Hi, it's being a terrible spring here (Spain), with record high temperatures every week and almost no rain in most of the country since mid February. The countryside in my area on Eastern Spain looks like it was August. Water restrictions, crop losses, etc. But we still have the sun, paella and sangría so politicians don't seem to worry, tourists will still come to roast on the beach.


Well, it was about April flowers. Narcissus are gone and Allium are beginning, in between come the Iris.

Iris filifolia



Iris xiphium (wild, Albacete province)



Iris sicula from Malta, this is true sicula and it seems that mesopotamica is the same, but the name was publushed later. Leaves dry up and disappear completely during the summer. I don't have to bend at all to pollinate them.



Iris sicula from the Algarve, Uli found it in a rather wild spot and I finally confirmed that it is sicula. I have since located it in Southern Spain, only in old houses and along cemetery walls so far. It seems that Muslims planted it in cemeteries as still do with albicans.



Iris tingitana, possibly the tallest xiphium



Iris tingitana, in the background albicans and purple albicans given by Rafa Díez. He says it is a reverted seedling. A glimpse of Iris bicapitata from the Gargano peninsula can be seen below on the left.



Iris albicans



Carlos

Hi, not a species. A poeticus hybrid, similar to x incomparabilis, if not true incomparabilis.

Carlos

Good morning, many thanks to the board! There are more Allium being studied, though. 

As in this case the work has been done beforehand, I can start working on the paper. 

Carlos J

Hi, I took better photos of fistulosus at an earlier time.

It is quite weedy here, I wonder if it is invasive outside its native range.





Then the Medium-season Narcissus bulbocodium from Uli, one of the plants makes amazing trumpets.





A Tractema ramburi I luckily got as something else. Tractema was splitted off Scilla and the species is usually spelled 'ramburei' or 'ramburii', which is wrong.




Finally, Gladiolus splendens from last EU Bulb Exchange




Carlos

Three Asphodelus from Eastern Spain

Asphodelus ayardii, Spanish plants were thought to be a subspecies of fistulosus for a long time, until they were compared with Moroccan plants.

Flowers are bigger, the style is longer than the stamens, leaves are wider and not scabrid (with minute teeth) or only along the edges, and roots are straight, up to 4 mm thick.












Fistulosus is smaller, with smaller flowers (here already closed as it was sunset time), has narrower leaves, scabrid both on margins and nerves, and twisting roots up to 2 mm thick.



And ramosus is far taller, with wide leaves with a V section and big flowers. It is being confused with A. aestivus, which is strictly endemic to the Iberian Peninsula. Ramosus has fibrous remnants on the rhizome and pedicels 0.8-1.3
mm in diameter when fruiting (aestivus and serotinus have no fibrous remnants and pedicels 0.5-0.7 mm only).




And finally, plenty of Lapiedra martinezii.




Carlos Jiménez

I'm sending some on Monday.

Carlos

Hi, Virgile.

I have a few Romulea with field data in case you want material. Variicolor from Malta, clusiana from Gibraltar, assumptionis from Mallorca. I am expecting more clusiana from Galicia.

Carlos