Colchicums late 2008

[Hagen Engelmann]

Hello Jim,
today I ordered GARTENSCHÖNHEIT because it`s a historical ducument for us colchicum lovers. Your homepage looks very fine, I will often come back to see.

Thanks Zhirair,
from your pics I learnt much about JAROSLAVNA. But the small colchicum is too small for my garden.

Hi Oleg,
your DICK TROTTER is also a very special plant. I would mean, the second pic is C. speciosum atrorubens??? C cilicicum isn`t so big. Have a look to my pic some posts earlier. Or look here:http://www.garten-in-den-wiesen.de/bilder/colchicum/index.htm

[Hagen Engelmann]

Jim,
if nobody want to solve your riddle, I will at least give a short tip. Anthers

[Jim McKenney]

Jim,
if nobody want to solve your riddle, I will at least give a short tip. Anthers

That's it!

Hagen, your eyes are evidently sharper than those of the editor in charge back then.

Does everyone see what we are talking about?

[Maggi Young]

Jim,
if nobody want to solve your riddle, I will at least give a short tip. Anthers

That's it!

Hagen, your eyes are evidently sharper than those of the editor in charge back then.

Does everyone see what we are talking about?

See this post on previous page: Re: Colchicums autumn 2008
« Reply #69 on: September 07, 2008, 09:15:54 PM »  .... for picture.

[Martin Baxendale]

Thanks Maggi. I missed Jim's little challenge. Too many anthers for a crocus - six like a colchicum instead of three.

[Jim McKenney]

Thanks Maggi. I missed Jim's little challenge. Too many anthers for a crocus - six like a colchicum instead of three.

That's it, Martin!

I didn't expect anyone on this forum to be fooled by that one!

[Hagen Engelmann]

Jim
I hope the flowers of the picture are correct. That is the real important question. Were we can find the first mistake may be there are some others???

[Jim McKenney]

Jim
I hope the flowers of the picture are correct. That is the real important question. Were we can find the first mistake may be there are some others???

Well, Hagen, now that you mention it...

The flower in the upper right of the Bartning painting is named 'The Giant'. I grow a colchicum in my garden which agrees very well with this image.

However, Bowles places 'The Giant' among the forms with very slight tessellation. He wrote "The second group evidently resembles the plain lilac parent more than the chequered one in the greater size of the long firm tube, the taller and smoother segments of the tulip-shaped flowers, and also very slight tessellation which shows mostly on the inner surface."

The plant I grow as 'The Giant' has the largest flowers of any colchicum I have ever seen: when fully open, one might place an orange comfortably in the cup of the flower. The flower is also well tessellated. To be sure, because of its paler color the tessellation is not as vivid as in some forms; but it is there, on the inside and the outside of the entire tepal, and under the right lighting conditions it is very conspicuous. One would not describe this degree of tessellation as showing "mostly on the inner surface".

So I'm left wondering which to believe, the description by Bowles or the painting by Bartning.

Even in the time of Bowles the identity of the Zocher hybrids seems to have been somewhat confused.

I've attached an image of this uncertain 'The Giant'.

For years I grew a variety of plants under the name 'Disraeli'. What I now believe to be the true plant has been in my garden only for a few years. It came from an  ultimage source I would be very reluctant to challenge. It is one of my favorites, and I've attached an image from past years (it is not yet in bloom this year here).

[Jim McKenney]

Now that I've seen that image of 'The Giant' on-line, I think I should post another one to show the tessellation.

[Jim McKenney]

Jim
I hope the flowers of the picture are correct. That is the real important question. Were we can find the first mistake may be there are some others???

Hagen, here's another possibility: perhaps it was a colchicum which Bartning painted. Some members of the genus, for instance some cultivars of  Colchicum szovitsii, look a bit like the image in the painting said to be Crocus speciosus albus in the caption.

Perhaps some of the real colchicum experts will weigh in on this one.

My apologies if this gets posted twice: the first time seemed to fail.

[hadacekf]

Here are a few pics of my present flowering colchicum.
All colchicum come from the Mediterranean area. No cultivars!
Only C.agrippinum was bought.

Colchicum-agrippinum.jpg
Colchicum-sibthorpii.jpg  - Olympos
\Colchicum-cilicicum.jpg  - Turkey
Colchicum-bivonae.jpg - Italy

[ranunculus]

Magnificent Franz ... many thanks.

[Jim McKenney]

Yes, really exciting Franz. The variation in Colchicum bivonae is very interesting.
It must be a real pleasure to step out into the garden and see such plants.

[Boyed]

Jim,

I think your colchicum 'The Giant' is true to name. I grow it as well, mine look the same as yours, and, no doubt, the cultivar has light tessalation.

I did think that colchicum 'The Giant' is the largest among all colchicums, until colchicum giganteum appeared in my collection. It astonished me by its huge sizes.

[Hagen Engelmann]

Oh Franz,
your Colchicum bivonae look very fine and there is a lot of difference to other species and cultivars. You show us the great variation of wild colchicum already in one species. Glad to see your pics.

For some more confusion (or not) here are ATTLEE and AUTUM HERALD. I`m searching for the differences.