Erythronium 2013

[Susan Band]

Erythronium elegans and revolutum along with grandiflorum seem to germinate later with me than the others. Hendersonii is the first to germinate here with germination in December from autumn sowing where as elegans is only just starting. There is hope yet.
 I am please to see you are germinating them now from a December sowing as I got a batch of seed in December and sowed them in the hope that I wasn't too late.

Susan

[Ed Alverson]

I also ordered seeds of 6 Erythronium species from Alplains, and planted them as soon as they arrived in early December 2012. Only one species has just started to germinate - Erythronium tuolumnense - which is also an early flowering species that comes from relatively mild climate. Early December is 2 months past the optimal planting time so it is logical that germination might be somewhat delayed, but I do agree that it is better to plant at that late date than it would be to wait until the next fall.

[David Nicholson]

I sowed a batch of seed I collected from my own plant of Eryththronium revolutum 'Knightshayes Pink' last June/July and sowed them immediately. To date no germination at all.

[ashley]

E. sibiricum sown here last December germinated well, but may be one of the easier species.

There's an interesting article on its traditional uses here. 

[Ed Alverson]

Sunny and warm here today, a high temp of 72 deg. F (22 deg C.), the warmest day so far this year. Most Erythroniums are at their peak of bloom and the warm temps put them in prime condition. The only downside is that the warm temps will also shorten the bloom season.

Erythronium oregonum ssp. oregonum
Erythronium oregonum, closer to ssp. leucandrum
Erythronium helenae (interesting how the tepals on these flowers are not reflexed, even with the warm sunny conditions)
Erythronium tuolumnense, a small flowered form that resembles E. pluriflorum (or may just be a fluke of this year's growing conditions)

[Ed Alverson]

A few more from today:

Erythronium revolutum
Erythronium hendersonii
E. hendersonii x revolutum

[David Nicholson]

Lovely set of pictures Ed, many thanks.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Gorgeous pictures Ed ! 
We can only dream of 22°C out here at the moment... 

[Ed Alverson]

We can only dream of 22°C out here at the moment... 

Sometimes at this time of year we'll get a warm zephyr blowing in from California - that is the advantage of being at 44 degrees latitude. Tomorrow it may be cold and rainy again.

[Gene Mirro]

Guff, what was the temperature in your basement over the winter?  E. revolutum grows on the Oregon coast, which does not get a lot of chilling.  I'm curious about the actual chilling requirements for these seeds.

David, did you keep the mix moist all last summer?  If so, they may have rotted in high temperatures last summer.  It's best to sow the Pacific coast natives in early fall as the temperature is dropping.  What was the highest temperature the sown seeds were exposed to?  In nature, the seed is dispersed in midsummer, but the soil is fairly dry until late fall.  Usually, the seeds get covered by organic matter, or carried underground by ants, so the seeds stay cool.

If you receive seed in January or later, I recommend placing it in a sealed container and storing it in the freezer until next fall.  There will be no loss of viability.  In fact, you can freeze it for ten years, and there will STILL be no loss of viability.  But if you plant it late, and it doesn't germinate in the next spring, you may lose all of them.

[Maggi Young]

Sunny and warm here today, a high temp of 72 deg. F (22 deg C.), the warmest day so far this year. Most Erythroniums are at their peak of bloom and the warm temps put them in prime condition. The only downside is that the warm temps will also shorten the bloom season.

A real pleasure to see these photos, Ed  - you're making old Scots folks very happy!

[Gene Mirro]

My Erythronium revolutum bed in full bloom, with gazillions of seedlings growing like mad:



A closeup:



Ed lives about 100 miles south of me, in the Willamette Valley "banana belt".  So his plants will be "first out of the gate" every time.  The US west coast is an amazing place for plants, because the climate can be so different from place to place, especially if you travel over a mountain range.  My place is 50 miles north of Portland, Oregon, but I can grow things here that I could not grow in Portland, because it was too hot there.  Some of the species lilies were impossible there.  If you can't grow a particular plant, it may not be that you lack skill.  It may be that the plant does not like your climate or soil.  For example, a climate with heavy rain and high temperatures late in summer will not work well for plants from the Pacific Northwest USA, like Erythroniums.  Special measures will be necessary.

[Guff]

Coldest part of winter, basement temps are 36-40 range.

[Leena]

If you receive seed in January or later, I recommend placing it in a sealed container and storing it in the freezer until next fall.  There will be no loss of viability.  In fact, you can freeze it for ten years, and there will STILL be no loss of viability.  But if you plant it late, and it doesn't germinate in the next spring, you may lose all of them.

Thank you for this advise.
Last year I sowed several species of  Erythronium seeds from the seed exchange. I kept them first 6 weeks in warm and then 3 months in cold (near zero celsius), no germination in spring, so then they were outside the summer and winter again close to zero temperature in the cellar, and germinated now in March, but only about 2-3 seeds out of 10 germinated in each pot. I was hoping the rest would germinate later, but perhaps not. Still, I'm happy that some germinated anyway, and I have a start of a collection now.

[David Nicholson]

David, did you keep the mix moist all last summer?  If so, they may have rotted in high temperatures last summer.  It's best to sow the Pacific coast natives in early fall as the temperature is dropping.  What was the highest temperature the sown seeds were exposed to?  In nature, the seed is dispersed in midsummer, but the soil is fairly dry until late fall.  Usually, the seeds get covered by organic matter, or carried underground by ants, so the seeds stay cool.

Gene, in the UK last year we had one of the worst Summers on record with incessent rain and low temperatures. I think it's likely there were not many days when the temperature exceeded 22/23C.