Fritillaria camschatcensis bulbs - runners?

[hwscot]

Hi,

Can anyone tell me about these bulbs, which arrived a couple of days ago in superb condition from Susan Band at Pitcairn. They are Frit. cam. lutea. I'm fascinated by the long 'runners'.

I'm new to growing this frit. This year a sowing of SRGC seed flowered for me for the first time, and I see they are the Alaska form that Ian illustrates in several of his bulb logs. I got a couple of flowering size, which I've put into the garden, plus several more good sized and some rice. I'm very taken with them, and in my delight, I ordered bulbs of the lutea form from Susan.

These new bulbs have the remains of roots that look much like other frits I've grown, but then they have these long things I'm calling runners, though I'd love to know the right name.

And what they are? I've not seen anything like them on any other frits (I grow meleagris, aurea, pontica, affinis, several imperialis types, and over the years have killed several others). I didn't see anything like these structures on the seed-grown bulbs, but then none were as big as these that have arrived from Susan.

I'd planned to grow the new ones in pond pots sunk into the ground in the open ground, near the Alaskans, so if I lift dormant bulbs I can be sure which form I'm lifting, but I'm wondering if they want to be able to run freely, seeing these structures.

If Ian has illustrated this in the log, I'd love to know, I've only managed to find mentions and photos of the bulbs in flower. I see he grows a yellow form, though I don't know if it's the same form as Susan's.

I'm happy I've got a good spot in the garden for them, but wondering how best to grow them there, so would appreciate any advice, but mainly am fascinated by these rather weird reptilian-looking structures.

The label in the photo is a standard 6" label (and I know, it's lutea, not yellow).

Cheers,
Harry

[ArnoldT]

Harry

Love the Leeds football team.

They may be  contractile roots which function to adjust the bulb depth to an optimal level.

These roots can pull the bulb down into the soil.

Different than the regular roots which are typically much smaller.

[Ian Y]

Harry
These are stolons and young bulbils form towards the end this is typical of the forms from Russia. They will grow to form a large bulb which send out the stolons check this bulb log https://www.srgc.org.uk/bulblog/log2006/190706/log.html.
They will grow in a basket but some may escape by way of these stolons.

[hwscot]

Thanks, Ian .. another fascinating bulb log. Has only deepened my curiosity! Spent a while on Google Earth wandering from Washington State to Hokkaido via the Bering Straits, Kamchatka, Sakhalin and the Kurils and never had to jump more than about 40 miles from island to island.

I haven't managed to find a good overview of locations for F. cam collections. Distribution maps for N. America, but nothing global with a polar projection. Would be fascinating to look at your speculations on evolutionary history with what we know about sea levels and climate over the relevant time frames and what we see in different forms of camschatcensis.

Down a rabbit hole. From a 6" plant label to a circumnavigation of the polar regions.

Harry
These are stolons and young bulbils form towards the end this is typical of the forms from Russia. They will grow to form a large bulb which send out the stolons check this bulb log https://www.srgc.org.uk/bulblog/log2006/190706/log.html.
They will grow in a basket but some may escape by way of these stolons.

[Tristan_He]

Hi Harry, Ian also wrote about these in 2007 when he also described planting them into a pond basket.

https://www.srgc.org.uk/bulblog/log2007/010807/log.html

Regards, Tristan

[Ian Y]

Harry, the distribution along with the ancestry of plants is the most fascinating of subjects that I think of a lot.

Fritillaria camschatensis is among a number of pants that are found in what appears to be isolated areas which at various points in the geological time frame were part of a continuous land mass so there was plenty of opportunity for the plant populations to spread then to become isolated as the seas returned.

Other possibilities we have to consider is if this considered species was the result of a single divergence from a common ancestor or were there multiple splits - this same question arises in Erythronium. 

Thank you Tristan for providing the extra link and for taking on the task of Indexing the Bulb Log  - to assist Harry here is the link to the current version of the Bulb Log Index - http://files.srgc.net/general/BulbLogIndex.pdf

[Tristan_He]

Ian, I agree, the evolution of species in relation to geography is fascinating.

In relation to geography, Day et al. 2014 Evolutionary relationships in the medicinally important genus
Fritillaria L. (Liliaceae) Molecular Genetics & Evolution 80: 11-19 published a fairly comprehensive genetic analysis of Fritillaria. One of the authors was Laurence Hill (Fritillaria icones).

Their F. camschatcensis samples clustered with a group consisting of North American species, and three additional species: camschatcensis, maximowiczii, and dagana. There seemed to be quite a lot of variability in camschatcensis - maybe not surprising in the light of its wide range, but it's conceivable that more than one species is involved.

The other observation I'd make about this work is that they weren't able to resolve whether the North American group were closer to other Fritillaria, or to Lilium. I know Ian and others have written about how North American Frits are 'different' to other Frits and this seems to back it up. Possibly the anomalous F. davidii could be important - this clustered with the 'proper' Frits but in a group on its own, and could be closer to the N. American species. It would be interesting to know what Laurence Hill or another of the authors think.

[Ian Y]

Tristan

I am familiar with the the studies you mention.

 From my observations as a grower I believe the American Frits have a different evolutionary history to the Eurasian ones with a few exceptions, that you mention, seeming to be closer in growth characteristics to the American race and I would support the multiple divergences hypothesis.

[Tristan_He]

Tristan

I am familiar with the the studies you mention.

 From my observations as a grower I believe the American Frits have a different evolutionary history to the Eurasian ones with a few exceptions, that you mention, seeming to be closer in growth characteristics to the American race and I would support the multiple divergences hypothesis.

One interesting convergence (or maybe shared character?) is the tendency of both N American Frits and N American Lilium to produce stoloniferous bulbs with rice. Possibly there is some predator in this environment that likes to eat bulbs and this is an adaptation to coping with it?

[Diane Whitehead]

I don't know whether it was a good idea for the frits to develop 'rice'.  The bulbs grow rather close to the surface and were harvested by almost all native people using digging sticks.  Each First Nation seems to have had a different way of cooking them.

Once several botanists were dropped off by float plane.  When it didn't come back for them, they dug up a lot of bulbs to eat.  The plane came back before they had eaten them all, so they distributed them to our local rock garden society to grow.

[Ian Y]

Diane and Tristan
The old world fritillaria that produce rice grains do so on the old bulb while the  American ones produce the rice on the new bulbs a significant difference.
When the bulbs are dug to be eaten by human or animal they will tend to eat the  large bulb and some rice grains will survive to pass on the genes.
I Have also observed that in wet conditions when the main bulb rots off once again some rice survives and I think this is the major advantage and driver of evolution.
The same is true for any of the rice grain Lilies, Fritillaria, Dicentra etc. and yes I agree with Diane this type of bulb generally grow nearer the surface than others.

[Tristan_He]

Thanks both, as always a really interesting conversation on these boards.