Podophyllum

[Paul T]

Wow, Diane.  That is so beautiful!

[johnw]

Flowering well at the moment.  
I got this as P versipelle
Can anyone confirm?  

Diane  - It's delavayi (a.k.a. veitchii). Flowers are the same as mine.  We're the leaves mottled when they first appeared or did you land a green one?

I previously posted a shot of the versipelle a friend got from Thimble and I think Robin posted shots of versipelle's flowers a few weeks ago with hairy pedicels.

The flowers are slow close to the ground, as are mine, that would seem perilous, the fruit sitting on the ground and perhaps rotting before ripening. Maybe older plants hold them a tad higher.

johnw

[Tony Willis]

Diane I agree with John it is a plain leaved delavayii.You will need a second clone to get fruit.

John I do not find the flowers are higher on older plants but the pods seem fairly tough and have not rotted once set. They can get eaten by slugs when in flower.

[johnw]

I was surfng today and googled "Podophyllum +bilden" and came across 11 pages of discussion on Podophyllum in German.  There is one particularly dark leafed delavayi pictured along with some spectacular shots of the species and hybrids.

Here's the link and proceed through the 11 pages to find everything.

http://forum.garten-pur.de/Stauden-24/Podophyllum-hexandrum-_syn_-P_-5672_135A.htm


johnw

[Diane Clement]

Diane I agree with John it is a plain leaved delavayii.You will need a second clone to get fruit.   

Thanks to Tony and John for confirming my suspicions.  I'd never seen a plain leaved delavayi.   It does have particularly nice flowers, very large with a silky sheen.  With regard to a second clone, I had quite a large plant but it didn't emerge after the winter.  However, I have a P pleianthum that I think may be wrongly named and may be delavayi.  Time will tell.

[Tony Willis]

John thats a very interesting site although it strains my german to the limit,perhaps I will concentrate on the pictures.

A lot of people seem to want to grow these plants but given how lovely they are it is not surprising

[Brian Ellis]

Great link, thanks John

[Ed Alverson]

The herbaceous Berberidaceae are a really interesting group, and it is also interesting to consider the intercontinental relationships among the various species and genera.

I was in southern Iowa last month and I was surprised to find Podophyllum peltatum growing out in fill sun.  Here is a photo of it growing on a roadside in an area that historically was an open oak savanna or woodland.  The savanna has been converted to pasture but Podophyllum still grows outside the fence.  This site is just a stone's throw from where my great-great-great-great grandmother homesteaded in pioneer times (1848, to be exact). 

So it would appear that this species, at least, is not strictly a woodland plant and could grow in gardens in situations with full sun.

Ed

[Tony Willis]

Ed that is an interesting picture.I have just seen it as I have had internet problems.I have found helleborus vesicarius in Turkey in just such an open situation. Having first seen it only in conifer woods I had assumed it was a woodland plant.

My Podopyllum pleianthum fruits have ripened and below is a picture. I was not expecting this so early and most seem to have dropped of and been eaten by some wild animal such as a mouse(I do not get much else in the garden) before I could get to them. The difference between these and the mairie which I will show when they are ripe is that these are yellowish with a slightly waxy bluish bloom. The mairie are bright green like minature apples. Each fruit has only contained a couple of seeds and each of these is covered in a viscous placental aril which can be seen in the second photograph. This is very difficult to remove.

The fruits have a strong sweet pleasant smell and in the interests of science I have eaten a bit to see if they are as good as they smell. They are bitter and quite inedible and so I will leave them to the mice.

[johnw]

Tony - It's interesting that there are so few seeds in the fruit and that they ripened for you so early.

Here are shots from just now of my P. pleianthum (?) from the Rhododendron Species Foundation and veitchii delavayi pods.  Strange the tiny aborted pods still hang on.  Both are still very firm. Crosses are marked with bread tags on each respective pod.

Also that tiny pleianthum x veitchii delavayi from Philip in June has grown very quickly in the rains of July and is already in a one gallon pot.

Don't miss out on Robin's great Podo seed list at  www.greenmilenursery.be   Seeds are marked available only when ripe.

johnw

[Tony Willis]

John

your pleianthum and delavayi pods look exactly like mine so I suppose that is a little reassuring. I am surprised at the early ripening and until I noticed some were missing had not expected it.I have several plants from my own seed producing some unusual pods and these may be hybrids.

I would expect the delavayi to be another couple of months yet if they follow previous years.

Thanks for the link to Robins list,I have not seen this before.

[Tony Willis]

The fruits on the Podophyllum mariei are now ripening and dropping of the plants.

The first two pictures are of different plants showing the fruit.

The third picture is showing the difference between the mariei fruit on the left which is ripe but still bright green and the pleianthum fruit on the right.

[johnw]

Great fruit set on mariei Tony. Enough for a pie.

johnw

[Maggi Young]

Great fruit set on mariei Tony. Enough for a pie.

johnw

I hope this is just a joke, John?  
While I think Tony W said he'd tried a bite of a fruit, all my sources say that while a small amount of well ripened fruit of podophyllum can be eaten, it is not recommended because in any quantity the fruit is as toxic as the root and other parts of the plant!

[Tony Willis]

Great fruit set on mariei Tony. Enough for a pie.

johnw

I hope this is just a joke, John?  
While I think Tony W said he'd tried a bite of a fruit, all my sources say that while a small amount of well ripened fruit of podophyllum can be eaten, it is not recommended because in any quantity the fruit is as toxic as the root and other parts of the plant!

Oh I think we will stick to rhubarb!