Allium 2009

[Maggi Young]

ACE alliums forrestii and nanodes (note spelling on latter), are a couple I have lusted over for many years.  Where did you get these?  In particular A. forrestii is reported having a great range of flower color, including some deep maroon red colors.

Mark McDonough
Massachusetts, near the New Hampshire border, USDA Zone 5
antennaria@charter.net

Mark - These along with A. prattii and a species cw Yulong Shan above Xi Song,China 3500m to 30cm were sown in 1994 from the original ACE seed.

Sometime in the past I posted shots, hopefully in an Allium thread.

If someone is headed your way next autumn I will get them to post you copies in the USA.

johnw

 John, I can find only these references..... and one is just a "threat" to post pix!!

http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=2119.msg52241#msg52241


http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=2017.msg50068;topicseen#msg50068 threat.... but no pix!

[johnw]

Mark - here are two of them.
Allium ACE#2394
Allium ACE#2430

johnw

[Stephenb]

That last one looks like Allium hookeri that we were discussing a few days back...

[johnw]

Stephen - Indeed, thanks.  The colour is off on 2430 as it was under fluorescent lights. It was close to a slightly greenish dirty white as I recall.  That v. muliense is quite something.

Aaron id'ed the other as prattii.

johnw

[Stephenb]

I took the following picture in Gøteborg Botanics. It was labelled Allium bulleyanum - just wanted to check my understanding that this is a synonym for wallichii? It seems to be quite a variable species...

[TheOnionMan]

I took the following picture in Gøteborg Botanics. It was labelled Allium bulleyanum - just wanted to check my understanding that this is a synonym for wallichii? It seems to be quite a variable species...

Nice looking allium, look at all those fat buds. 

Just checked Flora of China, the name bulleyanum is indeed a synonym of A. wallichii var. wallichii... look at this long list of synonyms:  Allium bulleyanum Diels; A. bulleyanum var. tchongchanense (H. Léveillé) Airy Shaw; A. feddei H. Léveillé; A. liangshanense Z. Y. Zhu; A. polyastrum Diels; A. praelatitium H. Léveillé; A. tchongchanense H. Léveillé; A. wallichii var. albidum F. T. Wang & T. Tang; Nothoscordum mairei H. Léveillé.

Mark McDonough
Massachusetts, near the New Hampshire border, USDA Zone 5
antennaria@charter.net

[TheOnionMan]

Mark - here are two of them.
Allium ACE#2394
Allium ACE#2430

johnw

Stephen - Indeed, thanks.  The colour is off on 2430 as it was under fluorescent lights. It was close to a slightly greenish dirty white as I recall.  That v. muliense is quite something.

Aaron id'ed the other as prattii.

johnw

John, do you have a photo that shows more of the foliage on the one identified as A. prattii.  It's another very variable species, including the foliage shape, although typically it's fairly long and linear.  The flower color is described as "purple-red to pale red, rarely approaching white".  Take a look at the Flora of China description of A. prattii, there's a line drawing link, and 3 photograph links.  I'm not doubting the ID as being A. prattii, but I have found trying to key the 8-10 species of broad-leaved Allium in China rather difficult. I like the pink stamens in your plant, very pretty.
http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=200027521

Here's a link to a page on my website showing what I identified as Allium prattii.  Bulbs in from Chen Yi identified as A. aciphyllum (not!), ended up as two different species, a red-flowered Allium prattii, and a white-flowered Allium ovalifolium var. ovalifolium.
http://www.plantbuzz.com/Allium/Gallery/summer/im_Allium_prattii.htm

Mark McDonough
Massachusetts, near the New Hampshire border, USDA Zone 5
antennaria@charter.net

[Lesley Cox]

So my seedlings of Allium wallichii may not be black after all? though the plants from which the seeds were taken were black, or extremely dark. (Anne W, have you the picture again? As always my Search has produced nothing at all. )

[Stephenb]

For what it's worth, here are some "ugly" leaves and sign for A. prattii taken the same day as the bulleyanum in Gøteborg:

[TheOnionMan]

Talking about Allium prattii and a small group of allied Chinese wide-leaf to hosta-impersonating allium species, one that I got from Darrell Probst that he collected in China, doesn't cleanly fit into any of the described species in Flora of China, but comes closest to Allium listera.  It's a beautiful species, and unlike prattii and ovalifolium that never make seed for me, A. listera is reliably fertile.  I upload one picture, to see a small gallery of 3 plant views and a foliage view, try this link:

http://www.plantbuzz.com/Allium/Gallery/summer/im_Allium_listera.htm

Mark McDonough
Massachusetts, near the New Hampshire border, USDA Zone 5
antennaria@charter.net

[Maggi Young]

So my seedlings of Allium wallichii may not be black after all? though the plants from which the seeds were taken were black, or extremely dark. (Anne W, have you the picture again? As always my Search has produced nothing at all. )

 I sometimes wonder what you do with that search button, Lesley!
Here you go...... one result from this Forum andtwo boskers, including Anne's pix from the old forum:
 http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=3085.msg75508;topicseen#msg75508


old forum
http://www.srgc.org.uk/discus/messages/283/854.html   Posted on Saturday, August 16, 2003 - 11:09 pm:

http://www.srgc.org.uk/discus/messages/283/38396.html   Posted on Wednesday, September 06, 2006 - 6:24 pm:   



And for those new readers who have no idea what the "Old Forum" is, it is the archived fore-runner of this Forum, accessed here:
http://www.srgc.org.uk/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi?pg=topics  .....and it is searchable, trust me! 

[TheOnionMan]

After being laid off a couple months back, I find myself with lots of time to cruise the web, be more active on forums, and do some "digital botanizing".  I've stayed away from social networking sites for years, I see things like Facebook as "odd" at best, or a real time-sink, but I went ahead and started up my FaceBook page, where one can occasionally stumble across wonderous things.  The following photo was in a photo gallery from someone in Iran, travel log sorts of photos in the Alborz (Elburz) Mts of NW Iran, the one plant picture he knew to be an Allium but didn't know which one.  I asked Dr. Reinhard Fritsch what he thought it was.  He believes it looks like an alpine form of Allium derderianum.

To compare with regular A. derderianum, and several other of these showy dwarf Alliums, here's a PDF link to 5 allied species in neighboring Armenia, with excellent line drawings of each.

Allium sect. Acanthoprason (Alliaceae) in southern Transcaucasia: a survey, with the description of two new species.
http://www.bgbm.org/willdenowia/w-pdf/w30-1Agababian+Oganesian.pdf

Mark McDonough
Massachusetts, near the New Hampshire border, USDA Zone 5
antennaria@charter.net

[Maggi Young]

Nice onion!


It's not good news to be laid off, Mark, but hearing what your past work routine has been, it seems to me you could do with a rest.... and it's not as if you are wasting time.... you are seeking info and spreading the word.... noble pursuits, in my view!

I do hope you get another job....if that's what you want.....but knowing how life has been for us since Ian had to retire because of ill health in 1997 and my being made redundant a year later, I must say that this new life is so much better...now Ian's health is pretty stable (touch every kind of wooden object in the room ) and we've found that we get along quite well on a small income but have so much more freedom to do as we please. I hope things turn out well for you!

[Lesley Cox]

Thank you dear Maggi, to the rescue as always. It was the last link that provided the pic I wanted. Anne very kindly sent me some seed and these germinated well. They haven't flowered yet but are growing in strength and size yearly. I see Anthony mentions that they should come true to colour. I DO hope so.

[Maggi Young]

Thank you dear Maggi, to the rescue as always. It was the last link that provided the pic I wanted. Anne very kindly sent me some seed and these germinated well. They haven't flowered yet but are growing in strength and size yearly. I see Anthony mentions that they should come true to colour. I DO hope so.

 I understand your hopes.... the VERY dark ones are so yummy!