FRITILLARIA 2017

[Maggi Young]

A very attractive species, Tatsuo.

[Menai]

Fritillaria affinis from, according to the seed packet, Ukiah CA. I don't know the source of the seed as the packaging didn't look like any of my regular sources. sown in 2013. It seems rather early for this species as Bulbs of North America says "as early as mid-April to the end of May". v.tristulis apparently flowers earlier but this is obviously not that. The second picture shows flowers in habitat on Trial Island off Victoria BC. This was taken on 26th May 2012. I had seed from here and those plants appeared only three weeks ago. I would be grateful for comment from fritillaria experts.

Erle in Anglesey.
I know we have variable weather but this last week has been ridiculous.

[Maggi Young]

Your lovely  BC frit is another form of F. affinis - it is a very variable species.   In your photo the  winged  ( ridged) seed capsule can be seen.

[Maritfri]

Hei,

First Fritillaria this spring is the newcomer Fritillaria karelinii pulkhakim. A very beautiful small bulb which I hope it like it here in rainy Bergen, and will come back year after year











Marit

[Robert]

Fritillaria affinis from, according to the seed packet, Ukiah CA. I don't know the source of the seed as the packaging didn't look like any of my regular sources. sown in 2013. It seems rather early for this species as Bulbs of North America says "as early as mid-April to the end of May". v.tristulis apparently flowers earlier but this is obviously not that. The second picture shows flowers in habitat on Trial Island off Victoria BC. This was taken on 26th May 2012. I had seed from here and those plants appeared only three weeks ago. I would be grateful for comment from fritillaria experts.

Erle in Anglesey.
I know we have variable weather but this last week has been ridiculous.

Menai,

As Maggi says Fritillaria affinis is quite a variable species. I observed them blooming the other day in Lake County, California (not too far from Ukiah). Both color phases were found blooming together in one patch. They ranged in color from dark brown-purple mottled yellow to pale yellow-green mottled purple. In all cases, the nectary is yellow with purple dots. In British Columbia I am sure that the species might look a little different but still be within the parameters of the species.

In California, Fritillaria affinis is known to hybridize with other Fritillaria species. One example is Fritillaria gentneri. This species may be a stable hybrid between F. affinis x F. recurva. Fritillaria affinis is also known to cross with some other species in California.

For me, anyway, Fritillaria affinis is easy to grow as long as it is kept dry during the summer. In the wild they are generally found growing on north facing slopes, shaded by trees or other shrubs. I keep my plants shaded, but then this is California where it gets hot!

Thank you for sharing the photographs!

[Maggi Young]

Menai, there are not too many frits in flower yet  with us here in Aberdeen - but I've been astonished at the  ( to my mind) early flowering that Paddy and Ben Parmee in Hampshire  have been showing  on Facebook. And those are outside in the garden! 
 As Robert says - they are beginning in California  and so I think yours must just be harking back to life in  lovely Canada!
Goodness knows when they'll flower in other years!

[Philip Walker]

F. meleagris

[Rimmer de Vries]

An early frit relocated by squirrel.

[Yann]

This afternoon i decided to visit the last site of Fritillaria meleagris in north of france. bingo after 1h i found several plots.

[David Nicholson]

Very nice Yann. I've never seen wild ones.

[Maggi Young]

Very few of these beauties left in the "wild" in England, David.
One of my most favourite fritillaries - seeing them like this in Yann's photos  spell perfection to me.

[Yann]

In England i only know one area in the south of Ipswich but i guess you can find them in others conties.

[Paul Cumbleton]

Yann, there is information on more than 9 different Uk sites on the Fritillaria Group Website at http://www.fritillaria.org.uk/uk-sites.html. At the group's recent meeting at Kew one of the Kew botanists gave a talk about the DNA work they are doing on the genus Fritillaria, and this included a section on how they have used DNA to track the origin of the British examples. It seems that during the last ice age there were several "refuges" where Fritillaria meleagris survived and then moved from those to populate the areas in which we see them today - there seems to have been three main movements from differing refuges, one that resulted in the western European populations (including the UK), the other two resulting in the more central and eastern populations. The ones in the Uk are indistinguishable genetically from the other western European populations. The most easterly populations are more distinct and may be on their way to eventually becoming a separate species.

We hope to be able to make the PowerPoint presentation about all this available on the mentioned website in the not too distant future.

Paul

[ian mcdonald]

F. meleagris grows wild in an old meadow near me. There used to be more sites but these have been drained. Our local Natural History Society once went for a walk in the grounds of a large house nearby. The owner told us his Mother had re-located F. meleagris from an abbey meadow during the war, in case they had been bombed. They were still growing well in their "new" site.

[Yann]

thanks Paul for the informations. I've seen this species by thousands in the center of my country and they have the same size as shown here. In 2012 i found a population in Slovenia where they were shorter (15cm) and greener, may be subsp...