Erythronium 2009

[Ed Alverson]

It doesn't appear that anyone has started a thread for Erythronium in 2009, and since I have seen random Erythronium posts in other threads, if thought I would step up and start one.

This spring has come on very slowly for us, for the most part the early bloomers are a couple of weeks behind where they were last year.  Finally, at the end of March, our early species are blooming well - Erythronium hendersonii, E. multiscapoideum, and E. tuolumnense.  E. oregonum has also started, but others such as E. californicum and E. revolutum are just coming up.

I thought I would post some photos of my bed of E. tuolumnense, which is doing very nicely now that it has been in place for several years.  I like the rich yellow color, it is the same shade of yellow as daffodils.  I think these plants are also benefitting from bulb fertilizer.  I have three forms, two of which are in this bed.  The two forms are very distinct - I intermixed the forms when I planted the bed but I can pretty easily tell which is which.  The first one is much taller, with upright flower stalks and leaves, and has fewer flowers per stem (2 to 4)than the other. It seems to be more susceptible to slug damage.  The second form has leaves that are more spreading, and the inflorescences are distinctively secund.  This form also tends to have more flowers per stem, 4 to 7 on the robust plants.  The third form is one I just obtained last year, so I can't really compare it, except to say that it flowered much earlier than the other, a full two or three weeks before any of my other Erythroniums were out.

Since this species is propagated mostly by vegetative offsets, it would be interesting to see how many different distinct forms are out there.  It would be interesting for forum members to post photos of their plants to see if there are any other recognizable morphological types out there.

Ed

[Ed Alverson]

And for reference purposes, here are some photos of E. tuolumnense in the wild, which I took at the type locality in California.  These flowers look much different to me than those of my garden plants.  The stems are upright, taller than the leaves, not at all secund, and with one to four flowers.  The flowers are more reflexed, though this may just be a matter of weather conditions.  The tepals seem to be much longer and seem more graceful.  But that is a bit difficult to judge without having actual measurements.  Of course, this is just a portion of only one population, and it would be interesting also to see how much variation can be found in the wild populations.

Ed

[Michael J Campbell]

Erythronium Pink Beauty ?

Sorry about the focus but it was very windy when I was taking the pic.

[udo]

Ed,
here my first Erythronium,
Erythronium caucasicum

[gote]

Michael,
Pink beauty is indeed a beauty. Is it a result of breeding/interbreeding or is it a form of a native one and in that case which?
Göte

[Ed Alverson]

Pink beauty is indeed a beauty. Is it a result of breeding/interbreeding or is it a form of a native one and in that case which?

Göte, Michael's plant is clearly E. revolutum, given the pink tepals and dilated anther filaments. 

Brian Mathew has written about "Pink Beauty" in a 1992 paper in the Botanical Journal of the Linnaean Society, vol. 109 pp. 453-471.  He says "Carl Purdy also selected a 'soft pink' variant from Humboldt Co., California, which he called 'Pink Beauty'"  Also in this paper, Mathew discusses E. "White Beauty" and clarifies that is is a form of E. californicum, not E. revolutum. 

I have always wondered if true "Pink Beauty" forms clumps from offsets like E. californicum "White Beauty"  Michael, is that the case with your "Pink Beauty", or do you increase them from seed?  Part of the reason I ask is that there are plants of E. revolutum in gardens in Eugene that do form clumps from offsets to some degree, and in gardens the colonies appear to be partly the result of vegetative increase and partly seed increase.  Typically, wild populations of E. revolutum do not produce offsets.  I have always wondered whether the original source of these plants in Eugene gardens was Carl Purdy's nursery, and thus they could be descendants of the original "Pink Beauty", though at this point there is no cultivar or seed strain name attached.  I'll try to post some photos of these plants in the near future when I get a chance.

Ed

[Gerhard Raschun]

just a few E. dens canis in flower now

[Michael J Campbell]

I have always wondered if true "Pink Beauty" forms clumps from offsets like E. californicum "White Beauty"  Michael, is that the case with your "Pink Beauty

Ed, the Pink beauty in my garden clump up very slowly if at all. The original clump is much the same for years although the seed grows fairly quickly and soon produces flowering size tubers. I just plant the pots of seedlings without seperating them and that way produce nice clumps. 

[Gerry Webster]

Pink beauty is indeed a beauty. Is it a result of breeding/interbreeding or is it a form of a native one and in that case which?

Göte, Michael's plant is clearly E. revolutum, given the pink tepals and dilated anther filaments. 

Brian Mathew has written about "Pink Beauty" in a 1992 paper in the Botanical Journal of the Linnaean Society, vol. 109 pp. 453-471.  He says "Carl Purdy also selected a 'soft pink' variant from Humboldt Co., California, which he called 'Pink Beauty'"  Also in this paper, Mathew discusses E. "White Beauty" and clarifies that is is a form of E. californicum, not E. revolutum. 

I have always wondered if true "Pink Beauty" forms clumps from offsets like E. californicum "White Beauty"  Michael, is that the case with your "Pink Beauty", or do you increase them from seed?  Part of the reason I ask is that there are plants of E. revolutum in gardens in Eugene that do form clumps from offsets to some degree, and in gardens the colonies appear to be partly the result of vegetative increase and partly seed increase.  Typically, wild populations of E. revolutum do not produce offsets.  I have always wondered whether the original source of these plants in Eugene gardens was Carl Purdy's nursery, and thus they could be descendants of the original "Pink Beauty", though at this point there is no cultivar or seed strain name attached.  I'll try to post some photos of these plants in the near future when I get a chance.

Ed

Ed - I have a form  of E. revolutum - probably a hybrid -  which is nearly as vigorous as 'White Beauty'  & clumps up well. This was received as "Johnsonii" which it almost certainly is not. It's just coming into flower so I'll post a photo in the near future

[Ed Alverson]

Gerry,  I'll look forward to seeing your photos - make sure you get the inside of the flowers as well as the outside.  I have to admit that I don't have a good sense of what E. johnsonii actually is, or how it supposedly differs from typical E. revolutum.  According to Mathew's paper (mentioned earlier), johnsonii has "leaves strongly mottled and flowers a bright pinkish rose outside, inside golden orange deepening to a dark purple".  The type locality is "Coast Ranges of southern Oregon", so I should probably try to find it in the wild one of these years.

I do see that Ian has some nice photos of different forms of E. revolutum on his bulb log from January 2008, including "Johnsonii".

Ed

[gote]

Göte, Michael's plant is clearly E. revolutum, given the pink tepals and dilated anther filaments. 

Thank you Ed
Göte

[Tony Willis]

This is an Erthronium revolutum 'johnsonii' given to me last year. The person giving it would say he knows its provenance back to the day God created it,except he is an atheist.

I can say happily that in just four weeks I shall hopefully be looking at them in the wild.

[David Nicholson]

Here's my Erythronium 'Margaret Mathew' today.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Looking very good David !
I love the Johnsonii Tony - very nice !

Here's my clump of Erythronium tuolumnense.

Bought it 10 or 12 years ago - it clumped up nicely but flowering got slower and slower until it virtually stopped.
I dug it up in 2007 (46 bulbs) - thinned it out and replanted 26 of them with lots of dried cow manure in the hole - it got a potash treatment but in 2008 I had now flowers...  ... more potash in that growing season and this is my reward this Spring !  I'm a happy chappy ! 

 

[ian mcenery]

Here's my clump of Erythronium tuolumnense.

Bought it 10 or 12 years ago - it clumped up nicely but flowering got slower and slower until it virtually stopped.
I dug it up in 2007 (46 bulbs) - thinned it out and replanted 26 of them with lots of dried cow manure in the hole - it got a potash treatment but in 2008 I had now flowers...  ... more potash in that growing season and this is my reward this Spring !  I'm a happy chappy ! 

 

Lovely clump Luc theres nothing quite like a bit of muck