February in the Northern Hemisphere

[David Nicholson]

Lovely 'Tantallon' Luc, I've never dared try it

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Thanks David !
I have it in my peatbed where it survived its first (mild) Winter... I gave it a pane of glass as rain protection.  So far, so good !

[David Nicholson]

Mmmmmmmmm

[Cyril L]

What a spectacular show the white caltha palustris makes. Is it available at nurseries in England?  Don't think I've ever seen it here.

I got the plant from Ian Christie in 2012 but it seems widely available in the RHS Plant Finder from Maggi's research.

[Cyril L]

Dionysia curviflora x, a hybrid from Jiri Papousek in 2003.

Dionysia curviflora Clone ENF 93/3 (Nigel Fuller)

[Maggi Young]

Dionysia curviflora x, a hybrid from Jiri Papousek in 2003.

Is yellow a usual colour for a curviflora hybrid?

[Hoy]

Nice to see your spring flowers down there while I am spending a week here at the treeline. It is still a couple of months till the first harbingers of warmer weather will appear here. (That will be Pulsatilla vernalis among others by the way.)

The weather hasn't been anything to boast of - and no aurora seen as the clouds are down to our ankles. But it is "warm" for the season. Usually this is the coldest month of the year with temperatures at -15 to -20C but now we -1. The mean temp is almost 10 degrees warmer than usual for the whole winter! We have normal snow cover but the areas south and east of us have more snow than anybody can remember. They had to dig down to find their cabins.

We have been out skiing every day despite the grey weather. here are a few pics - the trees are common birches (Betula pubescens), Norway spruce (Picea abies) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and juniper shrubs (Juniperus communis) under the snow. The spruces often make dense scrubs when the lower branches roots.

[Maggi Young]

Not the easiest landscape to navigate, Trond

[Hoy]

Maggi, it is not that bad when you are in the open even when you just have 30m sight (the pictures were taken today in reasonably good weather!) I have a feeling of the way and we know the terrain pretty well. It is worse in the dense birchwoods where you loose your sense of direction when you turn left and right to avoid the densest stands of trees.

In such weather like these days we often get white-outs, that is you don't know the distance and whether it is up or down in front of your skis.

Edit: Forgot to include the picture of me in the birchwood.

[Cyril L]

Is yellow a usual colour for a curviflora hybrid?

D. curviflora is purple to varying degrees in all the clones I have seen, so it is interesting that hybrids can be a totally different colour.  It is akin to D. afghanica hybrids being white - see reply 29 from Paul who posted some pictures.

[Cyril L]

Leontice ewersmanii, from Jan Jilek seeds sown 1996.  It comes from Afghanistan.

[annew]

Great to see pictures of Trond in his native habitat!

[Dionysia]

Hi Maggi
The obvious examples of yellow curviflora hybrids are Monika and Annielle, siblings raised by Michael Kammerlander in 1988, the first of his extensive range of hybrids and still amongst the most easily available. Although open pollenated like all his hybrids he believes the pollen parent to be tapetodes. Having said that, Cyril's plant does not look like any curviflora hybrid I've ever seen and clearly has aretioides somewhere in it's make up.
Paul

[Maggi Young]

Hi Maggi
The obvious examples of yellow curviflora hybrids are Monika and Annielle, siblings raised by Michael Kammerlander in 1988, the first of his extensive range of hybrids and still amongst the most easily available. Although open pollenated like all his hybrids he believes the pollen parent to be tapetodes. Having said that, Cyril's plant does not look like any curviflora hybrid I've ever seen and clearly has aretioides somewhere in it's make up.
Paul

Thank you , Paul.  I am familiar with D. ' Monika' and 'Annielle' (Mrs Lafong, of course) but I had
quite forgotten that curviflora was involved in their makeup.   
I did think that Cyril's plant  from Jiri ( hhttp://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=11357.msg296643#msg296643 )  did have a strong look of aretioides about it. 
Are there others of a similar parentage you can suggest?

[Dionysia]

Sorry about the delay in responding Maggi. The foliage is barely visible in the photo' so it's difficult to make a reasoned suggestion. It's entirely possible it could be curviflora x aretiodes although I'm not aware of any known examples of such a cross.
Paul