Ranunculus rufosepalus & R. amplexicaulis

[fermi de Sousa]

Should this seed be sown straightaway even though it is still summer?
Any ideas or experience from the accummulated wisdom of the Forum would be appreciated!
cheers
fermi

[ranunculus]

Good morning Fermi,
My advice, for what it is worth, is to sow all members of the Ranunculaceae as soon as humanly possible and NOT to mollycoddle the seeds in any way.
Greetings from the moors above Rochdale now glistening with a dusting of snow.
Cheers,
Cliff

[Maggi Young]

Hello, Cliff, thanks for this. As soon as I saw the post, I hoped that, indeed, the Booker WOULD be lurking and, right enough, there you were! Who better than Mr Ranunculus to answer here?
Cheers to East Lancs Group, by the way, hope you are all fine?

[Lesley Cox]

I'd go with right now Fermi. All Ranunculaceae like to sown as fresh as possible. They may not germinate right away but better sown than not - in my opinion. I was delighted to receive a few seeds of R. pyrenaeus from SRGC this year. Arrived yesterday, sown today.

Is it too much to ask that those who ask for advice about seed matters, could put the whole lot of those posts into one of the seed section threads? In later times when searching for seed answers it would make it so much easier for everyone to search a few threads than one for every genus. There have been a number of such enquiries over recent weeks. Just a thought.

[Maggi Young]

Lesley, I did move the Iris seed question to the bulb section,where the Iris page is, even though not all Irises have bulbs! The individual pages like this one are all in the 'Grow from Seed Section', so I think we'll just leave 'em here.


By the way, I'd always go with sowing Ranunc seed as fresh as possible, and if you are watching a plant for seed, watch closely, since they tend to ripen quite quickly!

[Lesley Cox]

Hi Cliff, nice to know you're around. I was thinking about you yesterday when I looked at the local rag because there was an article and photo about the astounding buttercup local to some of the North Otago mountains. We have been thinking of it as a ssp or perhaps very ancient hybrid of R. haastii but it has now been given a new species name of R. acraeus. There is an accompanying photo taken by Ann Cartman. I phoned the Otago Daily Times to ask if I could use the article here on the Forum but no, unless I paid a large amount of money to buy the copyright. So as I have your address here, I'll cut it from the paper and send it. I'm sure you'd be interested. This is the same plant I sent a little seed of, a couple of years ago and to Ian christie as well. Did anything germinate. What I myself sowed, never did. It's not so far a protected plant but very lkely will be soon as it is so rare and so local.

[Lesley Cox]

OK Maggi, thanks.

[Maggi Young]

Lesley, Cliff, take a look at the Field Trips downunder page!
 http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=161.msg3814#new

My Sister, Ann, just sent me this very newspaper clipping in a photo in am email! Toolie had been speaking about the plant on that thread.  I have posted it on the Forum, so I suppose the paper will be sueing me... let.'em, I'm broke!

[fermi de Sousa]

Lesley,
after reading the article I have to ask what are "thar"? Is it what is meant by "them thar hills"
cheers
fermi

[Maggi Young]

Fermi, "thar" are himalayan goat type animals, another of those pesky foreign imports that NZ must contend with. Hemitragus jemlahicus is the latin name.

See this pdf file from NZ.  http://www.forestandbird.org.nz/highcountry/pests/factsheet.pdf

There are also Nilghri Thar, a variety from southern India, but I don't think they've got to Nz.. yet!

[Lesley Cox]

Thanks Maggi, for the pic. Very nice.

As Maggi says Fermi. It should be spelt tahr though and pronounced as tar. We get awfully lazy about such things down here. "Them thar hills" (as in 'There's gold in.." is "there" of course, and I suppose originated with the early miners, perhaps more in hope than with experience.