Fritillaria 2009

[gote]

Tried to post this yeasterday but got an error message.
Anyway: i agree with Lesley that F, camtschatkensis can be a weed. I grow it never the less.
Dark form - which is plentiful, yellow form which is not so prolific and a double that barely survives and last flowered nine years ago.
Göte

[olegKon]

Nice frits, Magnar and Gote!
Some are still blooming here:
1.Fr. messanensis gracilis with 6 flowers a stem this year
2.Fr. alfredae glaucoviridis
3.Fr. cirrosa (end of flowering)
4.Fr.pontica

[Gerry Webster]

Very nice Oleg. Your F. pontica is much darker in colour than any I have seen before. Frits obviously do well in Moscow. Are they all growing in the open garden?

[olegKon]

They are, Gerry. We can't have an alpine house here as winters are too cold. Those which need dry summer are dug up after leaves become yellow for dry storage in sand.

[Sinchets]

Very nice Oleg. Your F. pontica is much darker in colour than any I have seen before. Frits obviously do well in Moscow. Are they all growing in the open garden?

Gerry, the F.ponticawe see in the wild here are very variable in clour and some are very dark as the flowers are 'going-over'. I am sure the specimens  in western Europe only represent a small sample of the different forms that could be found in the wild.

[Gerry Webster]

Simon - now you mention it I remember that some specimens of F. pontica do darken with age. I didn't see it this year since my plants collapsed from wilt before they had a chance to age.

[Sinchets]

Gerry, it would be interesting to know where in the range of F.pontica the original plants we have in cultivation now were collected from, and also if the population there is as variable as it is here in Bulgaria. Given how quickly F.pontica can bulk up, I imagine it wouldn't take long for a few original bulbs to bulk up to an extent where it is possible that most of the garden ones are derived from only a few wild bulbs.

[Gerry Webster]

I agree it would be interesting Simon, but possibly quite difficult to find out. The photo in Rix & Phillips The Bulb Book is of a plant collected on Ulu Dag, Turkey. I recall  a plant  being distributed in the UK many years ago as the 'Prasil Form'. Since  Milan Prasil collected in Eastern Europe this may have been the source of  another clone or strain. I suspect there may have been several other introductions.

[Sinchets]

Thanks Gerry, I didn't know that. I have F.pontica from 3 sources. The first from a garden centre- so I suppose originally from Holland; the second was bought as F.pontica substipulata, but seems to be straight F.pontica; and the third, bought from Janis, collected in central Bulgaria. Hopefully in a few years we will have more collected as seed on our travels.

[olegKon]

Last frittilarias this year
1.Fritillaria camchtcensis flavescens
2.Fritillaria camchatcensis multiflora

[Lesley Cox]

The yellow form is very nice indeed.

[Paul T]

Oleg,

That flavescens form is beautiful.  Is the multiflora a double flowered variety?

[olegKon]

Yes, it is, Paul. Flowers are double. Unfortunately out of the 3 forms of Fr.camchatcensis I grow this one shows the greatest reluctance to flower and multiply.

[gote]

Yes, it is, Paul. Flowers are double. Unfortunately out of the 3 forms of Fr.camchatcensis I grow this one shows the greatest reluctance to flower and multiply.

Exactly my experience. The normal one is a near weed, the yellow multiplies but modestly and the double one barely survives. There are red forms in Japan. has anybody seen them??
Göte

[arisaema]

Searching the Japanese name (クロユリ) in Google Images shows a lot of nice forms in orange, yellow, black and reddish brown, but nothing redder than this.