Erythronium 2009

[Ed Alverson]

Hi Rodger,
Many thanks for the information about the E.oregonum, it's great to have that kind of information about a treasured plant from those who live in their neighbourhood! 

Hristo, Rodger is correct about the different forms of E. oregonum, what you have is ssp. lecucandrum from southern Oregon.  I would suggest, however, that you check the stamen filaments to verify the id - if they are flattened, they are E. oregonum, if they are more "thread-like" your plant may be E. californicum.  The filaments don't appear to be visible in the photo you posted.

Ed

[Guff]

Thanks everyone for the help.

I sprinkled some bonemeal, then in the fall I will add the leaf compost.

Noticed this stolon sticking up, so I removed the dirt around the leaf, the bulb is maybe 1/2 inch under the soil. I will dig this spot up when they start to die down, and dig in compost. There are around 50 single leaves and the two flowering plants, this will be a good test try.

[Hristo]

Cheers for the additional input Ed, I will take a close look tomorrow and report back!

[Diane Whitehead]

There are some photos of Erythronium montanum and possible
hybrids of it in this week's Bulb Log 17.  Ian wondered how variable
it is in the wild.

Here are some growing in an active logging site on the San Juan Ridge
on southern Vancouver Island.  Some which were about to be obliterated
were taken home by one of the loggers and are growing well at a lower
altitude, though still fairly close to this area.  They flower at the end
of May on the ridge, and I must ask my brother (the logger mentioned
above) when his flower.  I will add the information when I have it.

The buds varied greatly in colour, some being dark red, but all the
flowers were white.

[Hristo]

Thanks for posting those pics Diane, nice to know some of these stately looking plants were rescued!

Ed, the stamen filaments are flattened on the plant I have / had as E.oregonum, the beasties have been and chewed through the leaf stalk two inches below ground, 

[Janis Ruksans]

Something a little different - Erythronium sibiricum subsp. sibiricum and row with E. sibiricum subsp. altaicum.
Janis

[gote]

Janis,
In my place var sibiricum is 10 - 12 days later than v altaicum. Yours seem to be in the same stage. Any comment?
Göte

[Janis Ruksans]

Janis,
In my place var sibiricum is 10 - 12 days later than v altaicum. Yours seem to be in the same stage. Any comment?
Göte

subsp. sibiricum allways is at least week later. Here altaicum at end of blooming, note few earliest flowers fading turn slightly lilac. Group of typica is just starting, no bed with flowers covered. This spring is very late and more compressed, but diference still is very great.
Janis

[Ian Y]

Diane

Wow, thanks for posting the pictures of E. montanum. It is a complete revelation to me to see the pink/red buds - do they retain that colour when they open or do they open white? I have a few plants that pick up a hint of pink just as the flowers start to fade.

On the subject of the non-flowering E. americanum ours started to flower better at exactly the same time as the ones in Gothenburg started to flower freely.  We had done nothing and I suspect that it is climatic.

For some reason this form of E. americanum sends out masses of stolons that produce juvenile bulbs which next year send out more stolons and so it goes on.
Someting triggers them to grow into mature bulbs producing two leaves and a flower.
Interestingly these bulbs do not send out stolons or perhaps a single stolon. One clump we have is now made up almost entirely of adult bulbs with few single leaves.
The patch in the pictures below is not at such an advanced stage yet but it is producing more and more flowering bulbs each year.
I am still none the wiser as to what makes them suddenly settle down and flower freely: Gothenburg think it was the dung increasing the fertility I think that other factors are involved but anything is worth trying.
I have a number of selected forms of E. anericanum that flower freely every year and produce few stolons.

[Ian Y]

Janis what a sight, I have never seen so many Erythronium sibiricum subsp. altaicum before

Back to the subject of E. montanum an interesting point that should be noted is that it has three filaments shorter than the other three a character that it shares with E. japonicum and to a lesser extent E. elegans.

[Diane Whitehead]

I saw no colour on any of the open montanum.  I haven't heard
from my brother yet about how they flower in his garden.
I just heard.  He can't tell me as he has a deer problem.


The spring '09 issue of NARGS' Rock Garden Quarterly has
an interesting article, 'Sophisticated Trout Lilies' by Don L. Jacobs
of Eco-Gardens in Georgia, U.S.A., about the stoloniferous species
of his part of the continent, E. rostratum, umbilicatum and
americanum. 

[gote]

On the subject of the non-flowering E. americanum ours started to flower better at exactly the same time as the ones in Gothenburg started to flower freely.  We had done nothing and I suspect that it is climatic.
I have a number of selected forms of E. anericanum that flower freely every year and produce few stolons.

Ian,
Are you joking? Same climate Scotland and west Sweden Mid Sweden has definitely NOT had the same blessing . I only get juvenile stoloniferous bulblets.  Fritillaria (Sarana) camtschatkensis dark form does the same. I have small bulbs on the end of 5-10cm stolons coming up all over the place. However, some of them grow to maturity . seemingly in lighter better fertilized areas. I have yet to find out what is wrong with the Erythroniums. I will take the hint given above of more fertlizing and I will try a lighter position. However, it could be the clone. Bulbs that multiply quickly but do not necessarily set seed are of course Darwinistically favoured in a gardening situation.
Göte 

[Maggi Young]

To suggest that something happens as the result of a climatic effect is surely not the same thing as suggesting that two places share a similar climate?

I do not find it unreasonable to postulate that the change from proliferation to flowering of the Erythronium americanum in Gothenburg and Aberdeen in the same season, given that the same cultivation changes were not followed in both places.
It seems that for many years the clones of E. americanum in both places ( not originally from the same source, I suspect) proliferated at a terrific rate, entirely at the expense of flowering but, in the same season, both suddenly began to make dual leaves and began to flower, increasingly well. Of the problem were entirely due to a non-flowering clone, what happened to transform the habit of both colonies at that time? It may simply have been an age related progression but might there not well have been a climatatic "incident" which affected the plants in both areas?

[gote]

I am geographically much closer to Gothenburg than Aberdeen is (270 versus 900 km) and I had zero blessing from the climate. Thus I find the climatic explanation very farfetched (some 1170 km.  ).

Is it not more likely that you both did some change in the cultivation at the same time? We already have the indication that Gothenburg started to manure more heavily. Are you sure you did not do something similar? The fact that both locations produced mature plants at approximately the same time should be a very valuable circumstance that could give a clue to what we other sufferers could do .

The ones I have seen wild have been just like what you describe but were growing in fairly dark places. Do you know for sure that neither of you did change the amount of light at the same time? If Mr murphy is arouind it might be different changes that made the trick not the same.
 
It cannot (only) be that they are undisturbed and suddenly mature. Mine have been undisturbed many years but have never sent up a single flower.

It is a general complaint that most clones of americanum remain juvenile (if that is what they are) I am not sure where I got mine, only that the two first times I got "americanum" they did flower but turned out pink   The ones I finally got were referred to as "Not the type that only produces leaves" and that was obviously wrong - at least in my place. If the vendor was right (He has been wrong before) it is not clonal but cultural.

Hoping to find a clue how to make them flower
Göte 

[Maggi Young]

We made no changes to the growing regime of the Erythronium americanum whatsoever. The development to begin flowering was nothing of our doing.

Might you not consider that a similar peculiar climatic incident might occur at geographically disparate sites ? Freak storms, for instance can occur at the same time in different places, far apart..... but the fact that a neighbouring area to one site was "missed out" does not preclude the effects of the storm in the places where it did "hit"