Erythronium 2009

[Diane Whitehead]

My understanding of Don Jacobs' article is that E. americanum is
tetraploid and always stoloniferous. E. umbilicatum is diploid and
usually non-stoloniferous, though there are stoloniferous colonies
in upland sites. E. mesochoreum is non-stoloniferous.  E. rostratum
can be either.

I guess the easiest way to get flowers is to avoid americanum.
I have bought it several times but it has never survived long enough
to flower.  Like all the Eastern plants I have failed with, it probably
needs more summer moisture than it gets here. 

[Paul T]

If any of you who have suddenly got lots of flowering get lots of seed, could you spare me some?  E. americanum and E. umbilicatum (the latter I particularly love the pictures I have seen, although my understanding is these species are quite similar) are species I would like to get but haven't managed to source.  I one time I was given some small bulbs of americanum they promptly passed on, as did all the bulbs of the person who gave them to me.  Something definitely affected them THAT year.    I would love to grow the red-backed yellow flowered Erythroniums, which is why I thought I would ask here while they are being discussed flowering at the moment.

Personally, I'd love to try all sorts of Erythroniums, particularly those that might have been hybridising with their neighbours.  Some of those hybrids just might be a bit stronger in our harsher climate, although most of the Erythroniums do well here.  It is interesting to see the comments re non-flowering.... I find that fertilising makes a huge difference here to species such as tolumnense for example.  No feeding, few flowers.... good feed as they're emerging above ground each year and they flower prolifically.  At least in our climate this is very much an observable result of fertilising versus not fertilising.  It's of course different for everyone.

[Janis Ruksans]

One of very few Americans grown by me.
Janis

[gote]

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" 

The non-flowering of Ea is a very irritating enigma. It is irritating to me because I have all those one-leaf stoloniferous bulbs all over the place and no flowers. 

Yes of course a climatic incidence of that type is quite possible but I find it unlikely. I also find it unlikely that an incidence would have a lasting influence. We would need to suppose that Eas need a special weather incident to clobber them on the head in order to reach maturity. The combination becomes very unlikely. One question to ask is whether you have any neighbours growing Ea and if they have seen any difference?

It is unfortunately all conjecture from my side - I do not have as much information as I would like to have but let me put down how I see it today.

#1 It is not a clonal problem since we have two instances of populations changing behaviour. (Three if we believe that mine changed from floriferous to non.flriferous) Good news 

#2 If someone (you) receives seed/bulblets of someting, grows that in good conditions it will eventually mature to flowering plants. Possibly this is what happened. I would very much have preferred that you suddenly realized that you added "Agent X" because then we could all do it but you seem adamant that you did nothing peculiar. Bad news= No Agent X  Good news: Good husbandry might bring flowers.   It would be interesting to know how long time you grew your Eas and from what stage?

#3: Suppose Gothenburg grew their Ea's in a too poor soil but otherwise well. They then fertilized and got flowering plants. They may need more available nutrients than other bulbs to reach maturity. Indicated above and also by Paul.  Good News: fertilising MIGHT bring flowers.

The obvious conclusion is that the coincidence in timing is the freak - not the weather. I know a professor who would claim that mathematically seen two instances prove nothing. I do not agree with him but mathematically seen it is hardly possible to calculate a significance.

Göte

[Joakim B]

Far from an expert but i have seen in the bulb logs that some trees were cut. Have the trees You cut given the plants more light?
As for climate the warm summer might have done the trick last year but Götes lack something and hence did not change. Or the temperature might not have been together with the same humidity in the soil in the beginning end etc. So if this change depends on several factors it is tricky to find all in one go.
There are so many parameters that may vary and not all known so it will be hard to determine what is the reason but maybe if people test they get similar results. I think Luc did give his manure and his got better if I remember correctly. Maybe he did other things as well?

All the best
Joakim

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Adding my tuppence in this discussion.

Earlier on in this thread I posted the story of my congested clump of E. tuolumnense having stopped flowering of couple of years ago.
I lifted them in 2007 and replanted them in heavilly enriched (dried cow manure + potash) soil.  In 2008 they produced lots of leaves but not one single flower yet !  This year they flowered profusely (see earlier pic in this thread) I think nearly every single replanted bulb produced a flowering stem and they are now setting seed.

As to the E. americanum question.  I visited Gothenburg last year and was stunned by the brilliant display of flowering E.a.  Knowing of how difficult it is to get them flowering I asked Gerben Tjeerdsma, who was our guide on the day, how they achieved this result.
His explanation was plain and simple.  They had grown E.a. for years before without ever getting them to flower.  Some years earlier (he didn't mention the year) they had lifted the lot, dug in lots and lots of manure, replanted them and they had been flowering profusely ever since.
They were planted next to their covered bulb area in a shady bed along a concrete wall and received ample rain throughout the year.
Amongst others, lots of Corydalis hybrids and Trilliums were flowering just as well.

[gote]

Götes lack something and hence did not change.

You are certainly right in that i did not feed them very much and I believe you are right. Had I known what I now believe is true, they would have been put in a different position with a lot of manure. - I am going to do that now. I have always been afraid to overfeeding since that may increase the incidence of diseases and make plants less frost hardy. Thus I only manure things like big blue poppies Cardiocrinums and nymphaeas where I know it makes sense.
Göte

[jomowi]

A further complication to the stolons or flowers story.  Over many years I found that so called flowering forms I had purchased produced only leaves and stolons, but no flowers.  Then the two years ago a friend gave me plants of another "guaranteed" flowering strain.  As there were several bulbs (still in leaf). I planted some in three different places.  Last year, as expected  no flowers but it was apparent that at least one clump was producing stolons.  This year one clump, which had formed a tight clump with many leaves, flowered (only two flowers but at least it was better than my previous attempts).  The other two batches did not clump-up but produced stolons.  Nutrition, looser or firmer soil all come to mind as possible explanations.  Perhaps the stoloniferous plants were just looking for a better place to live!  Certainly, while stoloniferous plants can become flowering plants, so called non-stoloniferous forms can revert to produce stolons depending on condition.

Brian Wilson (Aberdeen)

[Lesley Cox]

A couple of cents worth from me too. I have only E. umbilicatum, not americanum. Mine is stoloniferous but still flowers quite well, a dozen flowers last spring on a patch about 35 cms across. People sometimes ask what the difference is between the two species. None at all until they are in seed, when americanum has a little horn or point at the tip of the seed pod while umbilicatum has an indented or "belly button" arrangement, the umbilicus in fact.

Meant to say that the flowers are always at the centre of the patch, single-leaved slolons at the edges, suggesting that the inner, older bulbs do, in fact, mature to flowering size.

[Paul T]

Earlier on in this thread I posted the story of my congested clump of E. tuolumnense having stopped flowering of couple of years ago.
I lifted them in 2007 and replanted them in heavilly enriched (dried cow manure + potash) soil.  In 2008 they produced lots of leaves but not one single flower yet !  This year they flowered profusely (see earlier pic in this thread) I think nearly every single replanted bulb produced a flowering stem and they are now setting seed.

Luc,

It probably took them a year to recharge themselves.  I think the key with mine now is that I fertilise them every year, so they get a feed coming into flower, with enough left after flowering to help them set up the size for next year (if you know what I mean).  As an interesting note, I have never ever had seed on my tolumnense no matter how many flowers I have had.  Were yours grown from seed (and therefore contain different clones) or were they from an original single purchase?  Mine were all from a single original purchase so the fact they're the same clone may be the problem.  Not that I actually NEED them to seed given how well they multiply of course.  I also do have to wonder about our pollinators here in Aus, as so often people comment on things seeding happily overseas that never do here, but that could also just be climate.  Who knows. 

I'm finding this discussion fascinating!! 

Great to hear that umbilicatum is doing so well for you Lesley.

[Afloden]

 From my experience E. americanum rarely flowers even in the wild where extensive populations exist. In such cases only a handful of plants may flower out of a thousand bulbs. In some years, this is one of them, a large number of bulbs will flower. The past two seasons were drought stricken and starting in December we got rain, lots of rain, over 40cm in two months. This continued until the bulbs flowered heavily this year, but unfortunately the bulbs are formed the previous year when the rain was lacking so it provides no explanation, unless the two year drought triggered flowering.

 With E. rostratum patches in the garden take a year or two to re-establish and then flower consistently for me in Kansas previously and now here in eastern Tennessee. As Lesley pointed out, with both species, the clumps will flower in the center of a patch and the outer bulbs are the younger from stolons.

 With E. umbilicatum they flower every year and never make stolons, at least in subsp. umbilicatum, but in subsp. monostolon, from the higher elevations of the southern Appalachians in Tennessee and North Carolina, makes a single stolon per year and is also not always umbilicate.

 As far as telling them apart in flower, look at the petal bases for auricles; in umbilicatum they are absent except for subsp monostolon which has irregular tepal margins (just to add confusion), but the others have them. Also the seed capsules are not always so clear cut in umbilicatum and americanum where their ranges overlap, but the posture of the seed capsules and cross section do offer other distinctions; the capsules of americanum are held well off the ground and umbilicatum reclines or is just off the ground, and the cross section of americanum is nearly triangular while umbilicatum is 3-lobed, the lobes rounded.

 Brian, these were not from me were they?

 All the best,

 Aaron

[gote]

. People sometimes ask what the difference is between the two species. None at all until they are in seed,

In other words there is no difference for us unlucky who never get a flower-
Göte

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Paul,
My E. tuolumnense were not from seed but bought in a pot many years ago - don't remember if there was one or more bulbs in the pot.

As to setting seed - I don't remember them setting seed before, but they are doing so this year. 

I agree with you : this is a fascinating thread.

[Ian Y]

On the very interesting debate on the flowering/nonflowering of Erythronium americanum.
I simply stated the fact that the Gothenburg ones started flowering the same year as ours did as an interesting observation.
We changed nothing in the beds that ours were growing in, the trees only had their canopies thinned last year and the E. americanum have been flowering well for several years now.
I am sure that there are several factors involved and it is not just a case of lots of feeding.
You have to look at the wider picture and when Gothenburg added lots of manure they not only increased levels of some essential elements but also increased the water holding capacity of the ground - this may be a major factor allowing the bulbs to grow to maturity.
I am convinced that climate is a factor, it could be temperature related or increased rainfall at critical times or both.
Another fact to note is that once they start to form flowering sized bulbs they seem to continue to do so and produce less stolons.
Flowering bulbs can as Brian points out revert to making masses of stolons and there are forms of E. dens-canis that proliferate by producing masses of single leaves from a tight clump, as they do not produce stolons, in certain conditions. Once they are in that state it is not easy to get them back to flowering size.
As to telling the different Eastern yellow Erythroniums apart I think we are greatly hampered in cultivation, certainly in the UK, because we often have the same plants, mostly E. americanum, mascarading under the various names. This has confused me for a long time and explains why I found it difficult to accept that there are distinct if closely related species. I have seen some detailed pictures of the species now and am looking forward to getting correctly named plants sometime.

The most common form of  E. tuolumnense rarely produces any seed and if it does it is only one or two seeds per capsule. We have a number of forms raised from seed and these do provide us with seeds in favourable years.

[Paul T]

As to setting seed - I don't remember them setting seed before, but they are doing so this year. 

Luc,

Interesting.  I wonder what the difference was this year?  Then again, maybe another one flowered at exactly the right time this year and they're all hybrid seed?  I don't know which species will hybridise with tolumnense though, so can't help in that regard.  Quite fascinating that you have a heavy seed set this year when you normally get none.  It very much makes me wonder whether it is hybridisation or just the "right" conditions this year as opposed to normal.  Interesting!!