Epimedium - various threads gathered together here

[TheOnionMan]

The Epimediums just keep on coming...

1 - 3   E. x 'Domino' - one one the finest new (2004) intoductions by Darrell Probst.  Of Asiatic parentage, the plant is elegantly clothed in slender pointed leaves, finely soft-spined and tinged with purplish-red as the foliage emerges. The slender panicles of flowers are well presented above the foliage.  Spidery ivory white flowers shading to a deep brooding pink cup, set off by dark stems and pedicels, and dark purple outer sepals give the buds the appearance of shiny black grapes.  The flowers remind me of birds in flight.

4 - 6  E. x 'Sunshowers' - introduced by Darrell Probst in 2008, a cultivar created by a friend of Darrell's.  A cute small growing plant with red-speckled foliage, and spires of plump soft yellow flowers.  Viewed from above gives a slightly different effect, showing the white, finely pink-spotted sepals.

7 -  E. sempervirens 'Violet Queen' -  sheer flower power in this one, a fantastic plant for the masses of large violet flowers and brilliant spring foliage that appears after the flowers.

8 - 10  E. grandiflorum 'Purple Prince' - without doubt one of the darkest purple flowered forms of grandiforum.  Depending on the light, the flowers can look nearly black-purple.  Flowers are well interspersed and visible among the well formed canopy of foliage.

[Lesley Cox]

I'll look forward to them Mark. Might be away from home for a couple of days though.

[annew]

Your box of mixed seedlings made me smile - so tiny, but already so completely different. As a bee-mimic myself (daffodils) I can appreciate what a delight it must be to see these babies appear.

[annew]

Also - Domino and Violet Queen- WOW! Are these varieties available in the UK, or is it a US speciality?

[TheOnionMan]

Also - Domino and Violet Queen- WOW! Are these varieties available in the UK, or is it a US speciality?

Probably US specialties for the time being.

[TheOnionMan]

Epimedium foliar color is playing a major role in the garden this spring:

1-5  Epimedium garden seedling with brilliant red and yellow mottled spring foliage.. Yowsa!  This is a hybrid between E. membranaceum and E. brevicornu .  Starry white flowers with larger yellow cup... flowering has just started.

6.  E. x sasaki - natural hybrids in Japan between E. sempervirens and x setosum.  Several variants are offered by Garden Vision Nursery, this one (Cc.950183) is my favorite, with blunt, rounded sheild like leaves that are pinkish-red tinged in spring.

7.  E. sempervirens 'Violet Queen' - this cultivar has about the most intensely colored new foliage appearing as the flowers go over, than any other epimedium cultivar... brilliant red with green veining.

8.  E. x youngianum 'Little Shield' - a 2004 introduction by Darrell Probst.  This has quicken risen to one of my top 20 epimedium, making a mat much wider than tall, densley clothed in purplish-brown textured shield-shaped leaves; the perky pure white flowers just clearly the foliage.  A refined beauty.

9.  E. wushanense "Spiny-leaved Forms" - another Darrell Probst introduction from Japan.  While the foliage is evergreen, I cut the foliage off this year to see the fresh young foliage better and to work with the flowers (hybridization) more easily.   The new leaves are long and narrow and spiny-edged, of a unique burnished brownish green color, and remarkably glossy.

10. E. stellulatum - a wonderful Chinese species, one of several that create clouds of small white flowers with tiny yellow centers.  But is is the new cauline leaves that are spine-edged and heavily mottled with red, that gradually expand in size, to become the true show of this species.

[shelagh]

OK I have been and grovelled down on my knees with the camera and here is what's flowering in my garden today.

Ep. davidii
? x 2 Rose Queen (the blackbirds have a habit of label removal)
Ep. rubrum
Ep. x versicolor sulphureum
Ep. perraldianum
Ep. Merlin
Ep. SSS (self sown seedling)
x 2 Ep. leptorrhizum

[WimB]

Beauties, all of them.

Here are some which are flowering here now:

E. grandiflorum 'Spring Wedding'
E. rubrum

[Regelian]

Well, I have only a few Epimedium in the garden and can't compare with the rest of your wonderfull blossoms, but I just gotta share!

The first two are Epimedium'Enchantment', apparently a hybrid, but of what I don't know.  I suspect E. grandiflorum is in there. 

The next is E. grandiflorum'Chris Norton', which seems to be more of a violet, rather than lavender, as in Wim's 'Spring Wedding'.

The last two are 'Amber Queen', which, as you can see, has wonderful foliage.  The flowers are very small, delicate and produced in abundance.
 

[gote]

My Epimediums are just unfurling but i moved half a dozen seedlings that popped up last year.
It will become nearly a problem. I already have hellebores popping up everywhere and I have to rescue them since some of them might be very good. Now I have to take care of all epimedium seedlings too.
Space! space! a kingdom for some space! 
Göte
PS
Yes I do have space but I cannot put everything in a thicket of Rubus and aegpodium

[Ragged Robin]

Some really lovely flowers as well as foliage on Epimediums here:

Shelagh, the photo of your Ep Merlin is lovely , well worth the grovel 

Jamie, E. grandiflorum'Chris Norton' is a really attractive flower shape as well as colour and Amber Queen, just very

[TheOnionMan]

Shelagh - some good eppies there .  Good detail shot of Merlin, showing well the rounded inflated shape of the cup (a fairly unique feauture), the rich flower color shading to white inside.  I have a plant by this name, one of the few I DID NOT buy from Darrell Probst and Garden Vision Epimedium but got it from some general nursery, and I suspect mine is misnamed.  Good shot too of leptorrhizum, being a low grower it's hard to get an upfacing view as you did... I like the dark cup rim on that one.  The photo labeled as E. x versicolor sulphureum looks like it is actually an E. davidii form.  I have uploaded a few closeup shots of E. x versicolor 'Sulphureum' for comparison, also one view comparing flowers on 'Neosulphureum' (on left) and 'Sulphureum (on right).  Notice 'Neosulphureum' has shorter spurs and lighter color.  Interesting too, is that many (but not all) flower stalks on 'Sulphureum' have a cauline set of leaflets, there are other plant differences too.

Wim - surprised to see E. grandiflorum 'Spring Wedding', one that Darrell Probst introduced in 2003; I guess it has already "jumped the pond".  Your plant shows flowers that look darker violet than how they appear here.  I upload a few pics for comparison.

Jamie - I wonder if your 'Enchantment' could actually be 'Enchantress', a hybrid from Washfield Nursery by Elizabeth Strangman, a cross of E. dolichostemon x leptorrhizum.  You caught a good photo... my plant is situated such that getting a decent photo has thus far eluded me; it is a good, low growing plant.  The E. grandiflorum 'Chris Norton' is new to me... googled the name and it seems to be available in some Danish and German nurseries; I wonder what its origin is?  Also have seen the name listed as Chriss Norton with the double "s"   And 'Amber Queen'... this one just goes to show what PLANT LUST can do to an Epimaniac like me... with as many epimediums that I have, I don't have that one... and it is so gorgeous I WANT IT BADLY   What a stunner it is.

The last photo shows a lone self-sown Epimedium seedling, isn't it as cute as a button

[Katrin Lugerbauer]

What 'Amber Queen' is for you, that is your 'Domino' (and many others!) for me    .

1. E. 'Asiatic Hybrid' (a bit different to others with this name)
2. E. spec. (does anyone know it?)
3. E. grandiflorum 'Chris Norton'
4. E. fargesii
5. E. grandiflorum var. koreanum
6. E. 'Jörg'

[WimB]

Mark,

E. grandiflorum 'Spring Wedding' comes from a nursery in Belgium which bought it directly from Probst. The colour on the photo is true. Yours looks a bit paler indeed.

Here's another one, flowering here for the first time:

E. x youngianum 'Tamabotan'

[TheOnionMan]

What 'Amber Queen' is for you, that is your 'Domino' (and many others!) for me    .

1. E. 'Asiatic Hybrid' (a bit different to others with this name)
2. E. spec. (does anyone know it?)
3. E. grandiflorum 'Chris Norton'
4. E. fargesii
5. E. grandiflorum var. koreanum
6. E. 'Jörg'

Katrin, thanks for posting those photos, it is most interesting to see what is being grown in other parts of the world, and I see that 'Chris Norton' is evidently a popular one in Europe, a good color form of grandiflorum to be sure.

It is interesting about this thing called Asiatic Hybrid; note that it should use double quote marks instead of single ones, because it is not a single cultivar per se.  Apparently Washfield Nursery in England sold various mixed seedlings of Asian parentage under the "catch-all" name of "Asiatic Hybrid".  So, if you see photos showing completely different plants as 'Asiatic Hybrid', just think of these as various anonymous hybrids, with an unfortuante umbrella name for them all; the naming convention certainly not the best of horticultural practices.  Darrell Probst got one of these hybrids from Dan Hinkley, and so the one being distributed here in the USA looks different; a first class plant with lovely foliage in shades of olive tan and mocha, eventually becoming a burnished red-brown overlay on green, with slender spires of bloom above the foliage in palest pink and with ruddy pink cups.  It blooms for a very long time.  I include a few photos of one such "Asiatic Hybrid", as grown in the USA.

I don't know what your unknown species is... or could it be a hybrid?

Regarding E. fargesii, I don't know the extent of variability of that species, it looks very different to the single clone I'm growing (see previous SRGC page for a pic), but at first glance I thought your plant looked like E. dolichostemon, with the small red center with short curved spurs.

Regarding E. grandiflorum var. koreanum, the taxonomy changed in 2002 by William T. Stearn.  Most plants going around as E. grandiflorum var. koreanum are actually E. grandiflorum forma flavescens.  The true E. koreanum was recognized in 2002, and is also pale yellow flowered, but a species that spreads strongly by rhizome and has huge leaves.  Your plant looks like E. grandiflorum f. flavescens, a clumping species without long spreading rhizomes, but is a clumping species, with small, narrower more angular leaves.  Darrell Probst has offered at various times 9-10 different forms of E. grandiflorum f. flavescens, and 2 forms of E. koreanum, all of which I grow for comparison purposes.  I uploaded 3 photos of E. koreanum 'La Rocaille', this cultivar has huge (for an epimedium) light yellow flowers that when they first emerge are held on naked red stems, later the cauline leaves expand into a dense canopy.  The autumn view shows the bright yellow-orange fall color and the very large rounded leaves.

Do you have any more information on E. 'Jörg', another one I have not heard of before.