Fritillaria 2009

[Sinchets]

Hi Oron is that altitude for the F.hermonis high enough for snow in winter?

[Oron Peri]

Simon, it does, this species grows from 1500-2800m,
from 900-1000m and up  it snows each year.

[Sinchets]

Phew- so the ones I have in the garden under snow now have a good chance of surviving.

[Michael J Campbell]

F.  [hermonis amana] 'Goksum Gold' doesn't look right- it should be a good yellow.

Gerry,that's it as I got it from a well known Bulb Co. it is the greenhouse in full sun and we have had sunshine for the last two weeks.It has not been altered in any way other than to reduce the size

[Alex]

Some Frits from today: F. sibthorpiana, F. recurva X 2 and a F. eastwoodiae bud. I'm particularly excited about the F. recurva, since I imported small bulbs more than 4 years ago from the States and the first one has finally got there....

Alex

[Gerry Webster]

F.  [hermonis amana] 'Goksum Gold' doesn't look right- it should be a good yellow.

Gerry,that's it as I got it from a well known Bulb Co. it is the greenhouse in full sun and we have had sunshine for the last two weeks.It has not been altered in any way other than to reduce the size

Michael - I suppose your plant might be a seedling.  The original collection  was made  SE of Goksun (or Goksum), Turkey by the late Vic Horton & Norman Stevens in 1979. Norman always catalogued it as "...Yellow Form HS 2333. A  nice yellow form" or "soft yellow tesselated (sic) darker". He did not bestow the cultivar name & I don't think he liked it. The plant I pictured above, although not grown by me, is identical in colour to plants I have grown from bulbs received directly from Norman & identical to all the plants I have seen under this collection number. Seeds have been available from JJA seeds (497.004)  from further collections  of yellow forms made more recently(1994) at the same site by Jim & Norman  but Jim states that "only a very small proportion, if any, come 'true' in the first generation."

[ashley]

Congratulations Alex - well worth the wait

Gerry, can you recommend any other good frit keys apart from the one in Brian Mathews' 'Bulbs'?

[Gerry Webster]

Gerry, can you recommend any other good frit keys apart from the one in Brian Mathews' 'Bulbs'?

Ashley -

For European frits the most readily available key I know is in Bulbs: The bulbous plants of Europe & their allies,  by C. Grey Wilson& B. Mathew (this may be the book you refer to)

If you have access to a good library there are useful keys in the following, though some may be outdated:

European Garden Flora,
Flora Europaea (the online version doesn’t seem to include the key),
Flora of Turkey vol 8,
Flora of the USSR vol 4,
Flora of China vol 24 (this is/was online).

[ashley]

Yes it was the CGW-BM book I was referring to.  Many thanks for these refs Gerry.

Thanks Diane (below); yes these are both great resources.

[Diane Clement]

Congratulations Alex - well worth the wait
Gerry, can you recommend any other good frit keys apart from the one in Brian Mathews' 'Bulbs'? 

not keys, but good pictorial frit references to add to Gerry's list of references
The Fritillaria group
http://www.fritillaria.org.uk/imgindx.htm

and Laurence Hill's Fritillaria icones site
http://www.fritillariaicones.com/icones/Icones.html

[Arda Takan]

Arda - is your question  addressed to me or to Michael?
I have grown fritillaries from seed obtained from the various seed exchanges in the UK such as the AGS & The Fritillaria Group. This seed is often incorrectly named. I have also had seed from the commercial suppliers JJA Seeds who are very good & whose seed is usually true to name. I have never collected seed in the wild because  I have never been in the right place at the right time.

My question was for all sir,
I am 22 years old student, and have a garden for 2-3 years. Bulbous plants were always my special interest, so I searched for them and gathered as much as I can. But the ones I collected were always imported bulbs(tulips,crocuses etc.) which are hybrid. They are not natural species and are sterile I guess. After looking in to this forum I realised that you people are gathering natural species which breed. And doing a collection. Which I loved, I decided to do the same. But I don't have an opportunity to excange seeds because I have no seed.

[Michael J Campbell]

Michael - I suppose your plant might be a seedling.  The original collection  was made  SE of Goksun (or Goksum), Turkey by the late Vic Horton & Norman Stevens in 1979. Norman always catalogued it as "...Yellow Form HS 2333. A  nice yellow form" or "soft yellow tesselated (sic) darker". He did not bestow the cultivar name & I don't think he liked it. The plant I pictured above, although not grown by me, is identical in colour to plants I have grown from bulbs received directly from Norman & identical to all the plants I have seen under this collection number. Seeds have been available from JJA seeds (497.004)  from further collections  of yellow forms made more recently(1994) at the same site by Jim & Norman  but Jim states that "only a very small proportion, if any, come 'true' in the first generation."

Gerry I had some time today so checked up on the Frit. The one that I had labeled Goksum gold, is actually "Hermonis amana lutea" the one labeled as Whittallii and looked like Acompetala I can't identify, It does look like Acompetala but it is checkered and in all the Acompetala that I can find,the colours are all running more or less in straight lines,but not checkered.
Both of these bulbs were purchased from a supposedly reliable source, but are obviously of dutch origin, and the error was my fault for taking them on face value instead of checking  them for the proper ID. I am not condemning all dutch bulb growers but  the end supplier should authenticate his stock before selling on to their customers.

[Gerry Webster]

Michael - your plant that looks like F. acmopetala is a puzzle - frits can be hell to identify.  Flora of Turkey states that  the species is not  tesselated  & I've never seen a correctly identified plant which is. Perhaps you can post a close-up of the flower & a pic  of the whole plant so that we can all have another look? 

[derekb]

 
 2 Frits from me,
Fritillaria crassifolia kurdica,
Fritillaria crassifolia karadaghensis

[Sinchets]

Derek, I am interested in what ways Fritillaria crassifolia spp kurdica and karadaghensis differ- I had thought they were synonyms.