Colchicum woronowii, was Colchicum "liparichoides"

Jane McGary janemcgary@earthlink.net
Wed, 26 Sep 2018 16:58:43 PDT
The mystery is solved! In the 1993 (N)ARGS seed list, I find Colchicum 
woronowii (liparochiadys), donated by Molly Grothaus. The reason I 
didn't list ARGS as my source is evidently that Molly gave me the seed 
directly. She was a leading gardener in the Portland area, known 
especially for her expertise in bulbs, and around that time our rock 
garden group had an informal bulb enthusiasts' subgroup that met to 
exchange bulbs and seeds. I either misread Molly's label on the seed 
packet, or she wrote down a similar word (as we easily do). I still grow 
a number of bulbs I had from her as offsets or seed. Molly had many 
international contacts in the bulb world dating back before World War 
II, particularly in the UK, Germany, and Czechoslovakia, and presumably 
got seeds of this species from some collector abroad.

How long ago did this little species make its way from the wild to a 
European gardener, and thence to Oregon?

Jane McGary, Portland, Oregon


On 9/26/2018 4:40 PM, Jane McGary wrote:
> Thanks to Bob Nold's superior searching skills, I discovered a couple 
> of Russian botanical sites on which C. liparochiadys was given as a 
> synonym of Colchicum woronowii. I can't find an image of the latter to 
> compare with my plants, though.
>
> Whatever this is, it's well worth growing, as are so many of these 
> compact Colchicum species. Sorry to hear Jim McKenney lost it. I'll 
> lift the corms next summer and try it on the rock garden too.
>
> Mysterious names often derive from older floras published during the 
> Soviet era. There may have been official encouragement to botanists to 
> publish unique names for species described elsewhere under other 
> names. One can observe this tendency under autocratic regimes 
> elsewhere as well.
>
> Jane McGary, Portland, Oregon
>
>
> On 9/26/2018 12:10 PM, penstemon wrote:
>>> Has anyone else encountered this name?
>> Probably Colchicum liparochiadys, which, according to the Plant List, 
>> is an unresolved name. Tropicos shows no citation; e-monocot and 
>> Plantarium don’t even list it.
>>
>> Bob
>>
>>
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