Looking for Allium senescens, nutans, and angulosum

[Stephen Vella]

Hi,

Im after seeds of these garden worthy species.

Any suggestions or offering of other Alliums would be very much appreciated

cheers
Stephen

[TheOnionMan]

Hi Stephen,

At the risk of appearing cheeky, one could select a couple dozen Alliums from the seedexes, about half will turn out to be Allium senescens 

Seriously though, since the three species mentioned are related and so promiscuous in gardens, I recommend opting for any wild collected seed that might appear in the seedexes. Or look for seed from private collectors of wild seed.  For example, two years ago I got seed of over 20 allium accessions from Kazakhstan, one being Allium senescens, and wouldn't you know it, I failed with growing it, only got a couple seedlings, and nothing returned in the 2nd year, usually these are as easy as dirt.  If interested in A. senescens, also keep your radar on Allium incensiodorum (proper name for what was known as Allium senescens ssp. montanum, in part), it can be very attractive.

[Stephen Vella]

Hi Mark

thanks for your reply and advice and will try the seedex,

will look out for A senescens ssp. montanum.

I had just purchased your Allium Millenium (a new release here, takes 10 yrs to get here) and did some digging and found it was a nutans x senescens hybrid and then found your web page on perennial onions.  Ok now you have me interested!! I asked for these 3 as for their promiscuous behaviour and being perennial as these and their hybrids arnt so available here in Aus.

I had been looking for Allium 'Summer beauty' and found it was an angulosum selection? hybrid?? seen in Piet Odoulf gardens. A very nice plant. I had recently discovered and purchased A angulosum plants , how differant is it from Summer beauty?

Was hoping for something like a pure white angulosum like hybrid or clear pinks. Ever done or seen?

Are you still tinkering with perennial onions, anything in the pipe line?

cheers

[TheOnionMan]

I had been looking for Allium 'Summer beauty' and found it was an angulosum selection? hybrid?? seen in Piet Odoulf gardens. A very nice plant. I had recently discovered and purchased A angulosum plants , how differant is it from Summer beauty?

Was hoping for something like a pure white angulosum like hybrid or clear pinks. Ever done or seen?
Are you still tinkering with perennial onions, anything in the pipe line?

Such a story on Allium 'Summer Beauty', actually an Allium senescens hybrid with perhaps some nutans in it, but one that goes around misnamed as Allium tanguticum 'Summer Beauty'.  I've been trying for decades to make the case that Allium tanguticum (a bulbous species) is NOT in cultivation, that everything that goes around as Allium tanguticum or A. tanguticum 'Summer Beauty' is either an insipid pale flowered form of Allium senescens ssp. montanum (rhizomatous species) or a hybrid of it (in the case of the somewhat improved 'Summer Beauty').  I'm actually familiar with the origin of the mistake, but it's a long story.  Unfortunately the misnomer is deeply embedded in Hort.

McClure and Zimmerman perpetuate the gross misnomer of Allium tanguticum 'Summer Beauty', and still incorrectly suggest blue color in the flowers (they say: lavender-blue), flowers are in fact pale pink. Here's their misidentified offering:
http://www.mzbulb.com/dp.asp?pID=SAL17&c=8&p=Tanguticum+Summer+Beauty+Allium

YouTube video on Allium senescens 'Summer Beauty', with common names "German Garlic" and Flossflower (lol )


Allium senescens 'Summer Beauty' photo, fairly accurate color rendition, light pink.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/potteringaround/5958767635/#

My personal rant on this misnomer on NARGS Forum: Persistent Misnomers
https://www.nargs.org/forum/persistent-misnomers

So, it's an interesting twist that recently, this plant now shows up with a new misidentification, as a named form of A. angulosum, which it is not.

Stephen, later I'll show some white A. angulosum and some other good color forms of Allium angulosum hybrids and senescens-nutans hybrids.  Also, I'll show some good senescens-nutans type hybrids, with deeply saturated flower color, most so much better than those that have been kicking around for decades.

[Stephen Vella]

Interesting story on Summer beauty. Sounds like the nursery trade are wanting to use the name 'Summer Beauty" to sell plants and not concerned about what sp is attached to it.

I first saw Allium 'Summer Beauty' listed on Piet odoulfs planting list for the Lurie Garden in the US with a link to the nursery who supplied it in the US, with the mention of angulosum attached to it and I questioned its species as I too have come across tanguticum mentioned somewhere else and thought there was either 2 differant species in the trade under the name summer beauty or there was confusion.

Well what I have is not tanguticum and most likely as you say senescens x nutans. I wonder if its Summer Beauty?? Will have to contact the original supplier and find out its history.

I will flower it and see what you think.

Yes I look forward to seeing some good forms of angulosum

Thanks again for the help here..much appreciated

Stephen

[TheOnionMan]

The Allium tanguticum misidentification all started with a long defunct nursery in Massachusetts known as Blackthorn Gardens.  The catalog played up this rare Chinese Allium tanguticum with flowers the color of the sky, put a hefty price on it.  Naturally I ordered one, then got more from other local sources as it was getting around, confirming in each and every case it was a form of Allium senescens ssp. montanum. While this subspecies is variable but typically a fine plant, to add insult to injury, the one boldly labeled as A. tanguticum with sky blue flowers is perhaps the ugliest most insipid form of Alliumsenescens montanum, few flowered heads, on extra tall lanky stems, and flowers the color of dirty pinkish dishwater!  The "tanguticum seed" was thus planted.

Mistake #1 & #2 - back in the 1960s and 70s, there was confusion about some of the more obscure Chinese Alliums, it was printed somewhere that Allium tanguticum had blue flowers.  It does not, it is not among the small group of Chinese blue-flowered onions.  However, the misidentification and hyped up accounts from this nursery that flowers were sky blue, is now indelibly embedded in Hort, tying the wrong species name to the wrong color.  It is fascinating to me, to see how the description of the flowers as blue is repeated over and over again, such as in the link below.  I suppose the palest washed out pinkish can appear bluish in the low light of dusk or dawn, but once seen under proper light, it's a grand stretch to call it blue.

http://www.thebattery.org/plants/plantview.php?id=15

Mistake #3 - mass production.  There are growers like McClure and Zimmerman that don't seem to care about proper identification. I was in contact with the main grower of so-called tanguticum for M&Z, and the person who selected the senescens x nutans type of hybrid 'Summer Beauty'. We exchanged plants and correspondence, he too became convinced of the tanguticum misnomer, but all attempts from him, and others (myself included) to get M&Z to correct the species to senescens go unheard.  So, decades of the persistent misnomer deepen the entrenched error.  'Summer Beauty' is a much better plant than the one that goes around as "tanguticum", it has much higher bud count, lots of flowering stems, making a floriferous garden plant, but there are much better selections that could be made.  In the NARGS link I gave in my previous post, you can see the resulting plant.

Through the decades, I have repeatedly received plants from nurseries labeled as A. tanguticum, it's always the same ugly senescens montanum form.  Did this recently, I informed Arrowhead Alpines that their Allium tanguticum wasn't ;-)  They didn't seem to believe me (because they see the name and pictures plastered all over the web therefore it's got to be true).  So they wanted to send me one; here we go again, it flowered, it was the familiar rubbish, and into the compost pile it went.  I notified the nursery twice about my ID confirmation, but no answer.

These types of mistakes remind me of the favorite cult movie Brazil, where a single seemingly simple government mistake becomes uncorrectable and has a life of its own.

Some good Alliums will be shown, I promise.

[TheOnionMan]

Stephen, you asked about a white A. angulosum. The first two photos are from 2003, when I first selected this white variant.  It had a tendency to produce little "satellite" florets on the top from elongated pedicels.  2 photos.

Then two photos from 2009 and 2010. The plants are still in evidence in the garden this year, now that it's overrun with grasses and goldenrod after 2 years of garden neglect; I am in process of restoration.  This one makes a good garden plant.

 

 

[Stephen Vella]

What a chapter, and sounds frustrating...the better nurserymen do inform their customers of errors as they have a reputation to hold. I would say the ugly ones do fall out of circulation.

That white angulosum looks promising...has it produced seed this year?

[TheOnionMan]

That white angulosum looks promising...has it produced seed this year?

Probably has set seed, the difficulty is that my Allium garden succumbed to terrible weed infestation after 2-1/2 years of neglect (when I worked for an idiotically demanding job, working most weekends and evenings).  I have a normalized job now, and I have started into a massive overhaul (deep spading), to remove invading field grass roots, golden rod, blackberries, etc. I saw these white angulosum plants in flower, they've gone over now, but they are mixed in with pink forms and other species/hybrids.  What I need to do is lift the plants in the area where the white ones are, clean and replant someplace, then next year re-catalog the plants.  I'm happy to share seed, once I can be certain of what I'm sharing.

[Stephen Vella]

Sounds like project. I planted golden rod, im starting to think I shouldnt have. Thanks for the offer on seed, I can wait.

cheers
Stephen

[TheOnionMan]

For pics of better Allium senescens/nutans types of hybrids, see this link from 2010:
http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=5766.msg166015#msg166015

[Stephen Vella]

A very nice lot of hybrids, I hope most of them are salvage from your garden, asteroides looks amazing as does meteor shower. Sugar melt is sweet.

Some nice breeding work!

[TheOnionMan]

Thanks Stephen, yes, most of the more robust senescens/nutans/angulosum type hybrids are salvageable. Finding what's left of some of the bulbous species is more of a challenge.

Two photos, one showing my wholesale spading of my Allium garden, eventually every square inch will be excavated and sorted through. There was no obvious appearance this year (or last year) of some very small bulbous species, such as the tiny Allium parciflorum, but I was able to find about 100 minuscule bulbs, resprouting as they do in autumn, this is painstaking tedious work, but well underway.

[Stephen Vella]

Looks like an archeological dig! You must have some patients.

Just shows how persistent some Alliums are...You'll have a bed of flowering onions in no time.








 

[TheOnionMan]

More views of my ongoing "archeological dig", what really amazes me at just how fast one's garden can return to a wild state, looking more like a prairie than a garden, in just 2 years. 
https://www.nargs.org/comment/24198#comment-24198