Early-flowering Fritillaria species and their hardiness

Jane McGary janemcgary@earthlink.net
Sun, 09 Mar 2014 12:36:02 PDT
Makiko asked,
>Hi Jane,
>Long time before I saw a sign of  Fritillaria Festival in 
>Jacksonville, OR. It was earlier season to see the flower.
>I heard that the particular wild Fritillaria blooms only in Jacksonville area.
>Do you know what kind of Fritillaria?

It is Fritillaria gentneri, a natural hybrid between Fritillaria 
recurva and Fritillaria affinis. (Perhaps it should be called F. x 
gentneri?) It can be seen not only in Jacksonville but also in other 
places in that part of southern Oregon. The populations show quite a 
bit of variation, ranging from flowers that look just like F. recurva 
to those that are much darker and larger and not recurved, showing 
more influence of F. affinis. It is a listed species and therefore 
cannot be sold in Oregon, which is too bad because it would be 
extremely easy to propagate selected clones from the hundreds of 
"rice grain" bulblets that mature bulbs produce. The main threat to 
the existence of the wild plants is deer, which have been excluded 
from some Fritillaria populations.

Jane McGary
Portland, Oregon, USA




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