Hepatica 2022

[Herman Mylemans]

Here in my area of south germany you can find a lot of Hepatica nobilis populations.
In most of them, the flowers are only blue and I have no pictures of these which show the connectives. I will have a look the coming season.
Connectives from two places with a lot of colour variations like red, pink, white, some with dots or cloudy colors apart from blue or white have the following colors in the connectives:
blueish-pink, pure green, light blue, white, pink and also some in kind of red with a tint of blue.
These are only from wild populations without any gardeninfluence.

I will certainly have a look around other populations and collect all different colour findings. Probably this rules have more exeptions...

Thanks Axel, I am very interested to hear  what you find in spring.

[mellifera]

Lena, at your photos I like H. americana.
In my opinion there exist two or three filled Hepatica from North America. H. acutiloba 'Luise Köhler', H.a. 'Nimbus', and the one or other maybe. But never as much filled clones as we have found here in Europe at the genus H. nobilis and H. japonica in Japan.
What's can be the reason?

[partisangardener]

As with Eranthis now and with H. nobilis, maybe they have not looked for it thoroughly until now.
I have observed in the last decade here  with the forum garten-pur.de how the findings increased since more people were looking for it.
Alas propagation is slow and most are not a improvment to the already known ones.

There are hot spots where they can be found in numbers (some finders suggest). I have not yet found one, but one big population where colors vary a lot.


Another setback is here, the populations are quite dens, and a plant enthusiast usually does not like trampling on his beloved friends.
I tried with binoculars, but this is very tiring (at least with the one I have) and so my searches are very shallow and accidental. 

[mellifera]

As with Eranthis now and with H. nobilis, maybe they have not looked for it thoroughly until now.

Yes, that's also what I think!
Dear all NA guys, you have to search better! 

[Gabriela]

To join the discussion about connectives, I looked at few of my pictures and it might not be too conclusive for my H. nobilis because all are grown from open pollinated seeds, but the connectives can be pink, purple, yellow-greenish and green for one batch of H. nobilis var. pyrenaica.
I'll show just the one I named 'Walter' last year.


For H. americana the colors can be: green, green-yellow (yellowish), white or cream. Since I had more pictures to look at, it matters when one looks or takes pictures: when the flowers are just opening or later when fully opened.

[Gabriela]

For Hepatica acutiloba they are in general pure white or a very light cream, I only found green ones in a white multipetal. Of course, I only looked at a small amount of pictures.






And the beautiful H. transsilvanica , seeds from Kris. I don't have pictures with wild H. transsilvanica.

[Herman Mylemans]

Gabriela, interesting information! Thanks a lot.

[Leena]

Lena, at your photos I like H. americana.

Thanks. My H.americana are grown from seeds from Gabriela.

Since I had more pictures to look at, it matters when one looks or takes pictures: when the flowers are just opening or later when fully opened.

This is interesting. Does the colour become lighter when flower ages or can it change alltogether?
I will have to look at my native plants more carefully this spring.
'Walter' is very pretty!

[Gabriela]

This is interesting. Does the colour become lighter when flower ages or can it change alltogether?
I will have to look at my native plants more carefully this spring.
'Walter' is very pretty!

Like you guessed Leena, the color becomes lighter when the flower is fully open and/or the anthers release the pollen.
So, for one plant the connectives can be green just at flower opening but later may look light green or even cream.

Thanks, I hope the few 'Walter' I have will survive the brutal January. We usually don't have very low temp. for such long periods of time.
It seems that the beginning of February will bring some relief but remains to be seen.

[Leena]

Thanks, I hope the few 'Walter' I have will survive the brutal January. We usually don't have very low temp. for such long periods of time.
It seems that the beginning of February will bring some relief but remains to be seen.

Here it has been milder but temperatures going up and down has resulted in ice in some places. Mostly it is still snow, but I'm a bit worried about all ice in beds.
I hope your February will be better!

[Gabriela]

Here it has been milder but temperatures going up and down has resulted in ice in some places. Mostly it is still snow, but I'm a bit worried about all ice in beds.
I hope your February will be better!

Thanks Leena, the first part of February doesn't look promising if we are to believe the forecast. Once every 4-5 years we get a super-winter, so that we don't forget what hardiness zone we are in actually 

Ice is not good, nothing can breathe underneath. Sometimes towards the spring it can also happen here when the top layer of snow melts. Maybe you can poke some holes here and there.

[Carsten]

We had some sun today and more and more plants start opening their flowers.

Hepatica japonica 'Kagura' 2pics
Hepatica japonica 'Shirayuki'
Hepatica japonica unnamed

[Herman Mylemans]

We had some sun today and more and more plants start opening their flowers.

Hepatica japonica 'Kagura' 2pics
Hepatica japonica 'Shirayuki'
Hepatica japonica unnamed

Carsten, you are lucky to have some sun to open your Hepatica’s. Here the days  are dark and cold and some rain.

[mellifera]

Carsten, 'Kagura' is a very beautiful plant. I like the deep blue/purple with the green.
Also the leaves are nice.

[mellifera]

Hepatica japonica 'Yuzuu'
Hepatica pubescens ex 'Hohobeni'