Erythronium

[Ed Alverson]

Erythronium revolutum is also starting to flower here.  Actually, the plants in my garden are just coming up, this photo was taken at the Hendricks Park Rhododendron Garden here in Eugene.  Erythonium revolutum is distinguished from E. hendersonii by the pink rather than lavender flowers.  Also, the stamen filaments are flattened in E. revolutum, rather than thread-like in E. hendersonii.  Erythronium revolutum grows naturally in high rainfall regions near the coast, so it survives much better in parks and gardens that are irrigated in the summer - many other western NA Erythroniums will not tolerate summer water.

If you look carefully at this photo, you can see that the leaves are clumped because of the production of offsets from corms.  I'm not sure if this is a result of growing in garden conditions (good soil, weeding, extra water, etc.) or possibly an indication that these plants are progeny of a selected form or hybrid of E. revolutum that was selected because of its vegetative reproduction capacity.

[Gene Mirro]

Is anyone able to germinate E. montanum?  It's the only one that won't come up for me.  Ian?

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Beautiful plants and pix Ed - thanks !

[Ian Y]

Great to have you in the Forum Ed. It is interesting because the first of our E. hendersonii is just opening as well, we have no revolutum in flower yet but some are in bud.

Gene
I have no trouble germinating E. montanum I have grown it many times from collected seed and now get a regular supply of seed from our own garden. It is an interesting erythroniums as it is always the last to appear and flower but the first to set seed and go dormant - obviously adapted to a very short growing season in its habitat.

[Diane Whitehead]

I've just come back from a really quick trip to the Siskiyous to collect some Trillium rivale pollen. (The Siskiyous are an East/West running mountain range along the Oregon/California
border with many endemic plants.)

Erythronium citrinum was in flower in one spot in the Illinois River valley where
it is always early.  Here is a typical flower:

[Diane Whitehead]

All the plants I photographed were growing in a small area about the size of a city lot.

This group has one flower tinged pink, and there was another pinkish flower nearby.
There are no pink erythroniums within bee flight, unless a bee hitched a ride on a
vehicle.

[Diane Whitehead]

The leaves of the E. citrinum in this area varied in their amount of dark marking.

[Diane Whitehead]

This final picture shows an E. citrinum with a leaf that is almost totally dark.

[ChrisB]

Wow, so many nice erythronium pictures!  I really must get more.  I shall try from seed as Ian suggests but I'm also on the lookout.

Nice E. citrinium Diane, you are in a lovely part of the world there, have been to Victoria.  My dau lives in Abbotsford on the mainland.  Love those mountains.

[chris]

this year I have sown E.citrinum and some others I hope they will grow well,thanks for sharing the nice photos, here E.americana flowering for the first time:

[Diane Clement]

Erythroniums just starting in the garden - and my first one in a pot
Erythronium multiscapoideum Cliftonii

[ChrisB]

Hi Diane,

Saw one just like it at the Hexham Show today.  It didn't win anything, but it is pretty, mine looks very similar too.  I'm hoping it will clump up, Ian said i should plant it out in the garden, but not yet, not while I can still enjoy it in its pot.....

[ChrisB]

Here are two pictures from the Hexham Show of erythroniums.  The first was grown from AGS seed in 1987 and won the Farrer Memorial Medal, the second was grown from seed in 1998.  Hope you like them, I was gobsmacked!

[Luc Gilgemyn]

What great plants !!!!

Here's a humble contribution :

1) Erythronium tuolumnense - clum needing to be thinned out a bit + some potash to get more flowers     
    I guess ?
2) close up
3) Erythronium revolutum - obtained from the BD himself last year  !

[Paul T]

Luc,

Lovely!  C. tolumnense responds very well when given some high potash bulb food.  My big clump had very few flowers until I fertilised it.... the following season there were lots.  I forgot last year unfortunately, after a couple of years of fertilising, so I don't expect many flowers this year.  I have fertilised each time, with a slow release bulb food, as they broke the surface, so that they had food throughout the growing season whenever they wanted it.  Good luck.