Erythronium 2009

[WimB]

Hi Susan,

of course it's necessary to give hybrids a name for sale. People don't like to buy Erythronium RxWB2156 and Kinfauns pink is a really nice plant with nice flowers, thanks for introducing it.

[Susan Band]

Diane,
I sow a lot of Erythronium seed, some from my plants and some from wild collected seed. I don't make hybrids deliberately
The top 2 pics are definitely revolutum hybrids. The yellow one appeared amongst a bunch of E. oreganum leucandrum seedlings. and the last is from hendersonii seed, unfortunately I don't know if it was my seed or if this is natural variation. I think I remember Jens Neilson saying previously he had seen a lot of variation in the wild. It certainly bulks up well, although I find here E. hendersonii multiplies quickly anyway here.
Even although they bulk up well it still takes about 5 years to produce enough to release onto the market. Kinfauns Pink has been for sale for about 5 years retail and on and off wholesale, so Europeans should start seeing more of it about.
Susan

[Susan Band]

Wim,
Thanks for your kind comments. Everybody loves pink Erythroniums. For the NZ'ers they can have Rapuna Dawn, the Europeans Kinfauns Pink and Diane will have to make another cross for the Canadians. You can never have enough Erythroniums in my view.
Susan

[Lesley Cox]

'Ruapuna Dawn' was raised some years ago by Joan Whillans, at Ruapuna, Canterbury, New Zealand. It is tall, large-flowered, beautifully coloured with superb foliage and bulks up very quickly. My original bulb perhaps 10 or 12 years ago would be 80-odd now and I've given away and sold many as well. I absolutely agree about naming for slight differences, and for this reason I think the requirement to give a cultivar name to plants up for RHS awards, is iniquitous and, frankly, stupid as many are that plant alone and may never be propagated or distributed. (But we've been down this track before, and nothing will change because I don't like it.) However, I feel 'Ruapuna Dawn' is an outstanding hybrid in every way and well worthy of a distinctive name. I don't know and have never seen Susan's hybrid but I do agree that plants which are to be released for sale must be vigorous and able to be propagted easily and quickly and so should be given an appropriate cultivar name.

[fermi de Sousa]

Nice erythroniums!

Susan, I like those hybrids!

This little patch growing at Otto's was photographed last weekend:

cheers
fermi

[Ragged Robin]

A wonderful patch skirting the tree, what are they growing under?

[Paul T]

Fermi,

I remember that patch from last year.  Absolutely brilliant.  Some very nice shades in there as well.  I recall he had some beautiful white ones too, with strong markings in the centre.  They were a bit further up the hill.  Sigh.... I wish I was down there viewing them in person. 

[Ed Alverson]

The hybrids I keep attempting to make are with E. tuolumnense which
is from California.  It is unusual among North American west-coast
species in that it forms offsets.  Most of our species produce one bulb
from one seed and do not offset at all.

I agree with Diane, that deliberate hybridization with specific goals is needed with Erythronium.  Speaking for myself, important goals would be the combination of striking flower colors, good growth form (especially leaf size relative to flower size), good tolerance of garden conditions, and an ability to reproduce vegetatively from offsets.  I have played around a bit with cross-pollination myself, for example, crossing pink-flowered E. revolutum with lavender E. hendersonii, and yellow E. grandiflorum with yellow E. tuolumnense.  So far the resulting seedlings are only a few years old and haven't yet flowered, so I have a few more years to wait to see what I've been able to produce.  But I figure that if I can do even a small number of deliberate crosses each year, over the years at least a few of the crosses may turn out to be something worth sharing.

While only a few western NA species such as E. tuolumnense commonly produce a few offsets in the wild, I have found that many species very occasionally produce individuals in wild populations that do produce offsets.  Using these individuals as the parents in deliberate hybridization efforts may be a key to developing good hybrids for garden use.

Ed

[Diane Whitehead]

I must remember to look for clumping next time I'm looking for wild erythroniums.
Maybe I should put a sign on my camera bag to remind myself.

I automatically look for ones with good leaf markings, as that varies a lot.  The
flowers don't vary much, at least in the species I've been photographing.  I also
look for ones that will photograph well.  Maybe that will make it easier - if there
is a clump, it will be photogenic, so I might have been noticing them without
realizing exactly what I was seeing.

The good thing is, I can collect pollen wherever I am, and take it home to put on
my own plants.

[Ed Alverson]

Diane,
I sow a lot of Erythronium seed, some from my plants and some from wild collected seed. I don't make hybrids deliberately
The top 2 pics are definitely revolutum hybrids. The yellow one appeared amongst a bunch of E. oreganum leucandrum seedlings. and the last is from hendersonii seed, unfortunately I don't know if it was my seed or if this is natural variation.

Nice hybrids, Susan.  Kinfauns Sunset clearly shows its hybrid origin by its white anthers, typical E. revolutum has yellow anthers.  So perhaps its other parent is E. californicum.  It is a bit harder to say what the other parent of the second pink hybrid might be, but with yellow anthers it may be E. oregonum.  The third photo of the photo with creamy tepals has the look of a particularly dark cream fork of E. oregonum ssp. leucandrum, but it would help to see if the anther filaments are flattened and the stigma well divided to verify this determination.  Terete (rounded) filaments and/or unlobed stigma would indicate a hybrid origin.  Yes, the tepal color depth of E. hendersonii does vary quite a bit in the wild, from fairly rich lavender to almost white with a slight lavender tinge.  I have a plant in my garden grown from wild hendersonii seed that has similar tepal coloration.  However, your plant does have a bit of a look of a hybrid to it.  I can't see the detail of the stigma too well in the photo but it looks like the stigma is slightly divided, which suggests the possibility of a hybrid with a white flowered species with a lobed stigma, such as E. oregonum or E. californicum.

Ed

[Diane Whitehead]

Susan,

Do your hybrids set viable seeds?

I'm wondering if I can plan long-range, or whether I will have to plan
to produce what I want in the first generation.  I hope not, as there
are several qualities I want my hybrids to have, and that will involve
three or four species.

[Susan Band]

Ed,
I have that feeling about the hendersonii as well, it just feels like a hybrid but I haven't seen the variation in the wild. I have some more seedlings which flowered for the first time and some of these had paler anthers, is that normal in wild populations or all my seedlings going to get mixed up? These had darker lilac petals.

Diane,
Yes the E. Kinfauns Pink does set seed but I cut off all the flowers in the beds for selling, in the garden they are allowed to do what they like. I can't remember about the others though, I usually cut off the flowers to prevent the stock getting mixed up. The reason I had these hybrids is that I was trying to build up a stock of dark revolutum originally obtain as seed from Wayne Roderick.
Have fun with your hybridising. The most promiscuous species I have found are revolutum and hendersonii possibly with oregonum. White Beauty usually seeds the same. I never have found any with signs of toulumense, but then it usually flowers earlier when the weather is bad.
Susan

[Diane Whitehead]

Yes, garden hybrids are to be expected, as oregonum is so widespread its range
overlaps that of hendersonii and revolutum and they hybridize in the wild.

Revolutum/oregonum hybrids are fertile.  I don't know about the yellow hybrids
of tuolumnense.  I guess I should look in some old seed exchange lists.  If
seed of Pagoda, Citronella etc are offered, then I'll know.

[Ed Alverson]

Ed,
I have that feeling about the hendersonii as well, it just feels like a hybrid but I haven't seen the variation in the wild. I have some more seedlings which flowered for the first time and some of these had paler anthers, is that normal in wild populations or all my seedlings going to get mixed up? These had darker lilac petals.

Susan, how pale were your pale-anthered E. hendersonii?  When Ian and I visited Upper Table Rock last March, the Erythronium hendersonii was just starting to open its flowers, but many of the plants we saw had yellow rather and purple anthers, as shown in the attached photos.  It would be interesting to visit the population in full bloom (there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of E. hendersonii plants) to get an idea of the percentage of plants with yellow vs. purple anthers.  I'm not sure how widespread yellow-anthered E. hendersonii plants might be, but it is curious where the yellow anthers and pollen come from.  Most all of the white-flowered species in this group of western Erythroniums have white anthers, the main exception being E. helenae, which grows much farther to the south.

Ed

[mark smyth]

I love Erythroniums but dont grow many and would love to see larger photos especially your close ups