FRITILLARIA 2017

[Steve Garvie]

Fritillaria ariana ex Turkmenistan


Fritillaria ariana ex Afghanistan


Fritillaria karelinii pale-flowered form



Fritillaria karelinii ex Uzbekistan

[Leucogenes]

My congratulations. As always fantastic shots of you. I love the sharpness and accurate details of your pictures. You have a very great talent for the art of photography. Enviable.

[Gabriela]

Yes, stunning pictures of these very beautiful plants!

[Carolyn]

These photos just make you want to grow these plants! Wonderful, as ever.

[Roma]

Fritillaria pudica

[Steve Garvie]

Fritillaria stenanthera

[art600]

I need the drooling emoji to express my feelings when viewing Steve's fabulous photos.  Simply stunning

[Menai]

Fritillaria tuntasia or more correctly, according to Fritillaria group Fritillaria obliqua ssp tuntasia. Seed came from Rannveig Wallis in 2012 and I can't tell from web pictures whether it is this ssp. First time flowering and for a change I have a nice potful and not my usual lonely survivor.

Erle from rather damp Anglesey ( so much for our dry winter)

[sokol]

I think it is Frit. obliqua, as the leaves of Frit. tuntasia are more twisted. See my picture from the last two years.

[Maggi Young]

 Frit. obliqua, for the reason Stefan said -  but - who is to say there may not be a continuum between the two?!

[sokol]

I haven't observed a continuum between them in the wild, Meggie.
Frit obliqua flowers in Evia and Attiki on calcerous soil whereas the two islands Kithnos and Serifos where Frit. tuntasia growes are free of limestone.
I think they are separating from each other because of isolation. But I don't know what's the trigger for the different leave forms.

[Maggi Young]

Thank you, Stefan. There can be so much variability in some species that unless one knows their wild habits it can be hard to decide how close they might be. 

[sokol]

Have a look where F. obliqua grows on Evia, mainly on the top of the hills in the rocky areas. After we discovered it by chance in 2011 on the hill from which the first picture was taken we returned in the following year to the hill shown in the picture where we discovered it again.

[Menai]

Thank you very much for that clarification Stefan

Erle

[Steve Garvie]

With me Fritillaria obliqua always flowers earlier than Fritillaria tuntasia. Like Stefan I find that tuntasia has more compact, twisted, propellor-like leaves which have a more pronounced bloom on their surface. The flowers are however very similar. Does tuntasia come from a drier habitat?

Here is my Fritillaria obliqua in flower and an overview of the plant:



Here is an image of my Fritillaria tuntasia which should flower in the next 10-14 days. I dampened a leaf section to highlight the "bloom".