Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Bulbs => Bulbs General => Topic started by: Kees Jan on January 04, 2009, 05:08:16 PM
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Hello,
I'm attaching two pics of an autumn flowering Allium, photographed in the SW of Hatay province in S Turkey, October 2008. I think the plants were about 40cm tall. Not a wildly exciting plant for the garden, but of botanical interest.
It seems to be similar to Allium paniculatum, but the flowering time (mid-October) would be very late for this species (normally may-august). It looks very similar to the picture of the related Allium dentiferum at http://www.marz-kreations.com/WildPlants/LILI/Allium_dentiferum.html I'm not sure if dentiferum grows as far east as Hatay province though, or what separates it from paniculatum.
Any suggestions or information would be much appreciated!
Kees Jan
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Kees,
I would suggest more for the A. tardans group, I say group because this species has a wide distribution in
most of the E. Mediterranean Islands, Greece and Turkey.
To my knowledge there are four Allium Species that flower in the area in autumn:
A. tardans [distribution as above]
A. autumnale [Cyprus]
A. tardiflorum [Israel]
A. callimischon [Greece, Turkey]
the first three are very similar in appearance and hard to tell a part.
I must say that your Allium has more flowers than all the other I mentioned, was it a common characteristic of the others too?
They are all closely related to A. paniculatum [in bloom in early summer: June, July].
A. tardiflorum from Israel was treated in the past as a ssp. of A. paniculatum as well as A. dentiferum [you have mentioned].