Plants flowering in the open rock garden- July 09

[Ragged Robin]

I have been looking out for your next postings and they are well worth waiting for Zdenek, each one is fascinating and lovely photos...
I especially love the two Campanulas; zoysii has an amazing flower 

[Lori S.]

Terrific plants, Zdenek!

Lori,
I am affraid that the name of your Campanula is not correct. I grow under this name (correct spelling is C. hercegovina Degen at Fiala)
another plant which I got in this spring from Ron Beeston. I believe that this one is correct species as it must be very tiny according my information. I am not sure however on 100%. My plant is very tiny and its height is only about 5 or 6 cm.

Well, I couldn't say if my plant is correctly labelled or not...    
Graham Nicholls in his Dwarf Campanulas and Associated Genera provides general descriptions that seem to fit in flower, leaf and form, and a photo that also seems to fit.   (Note however that the descriptions are general.)
He says of C. hercegovina that stems are 10-20 cm (slender, decumbent, branched), and flowers to 2 cm, and that C. hercegovina 'Nana' is more compact with "small" flowers and stems to 7-10 cm long (also slender, decumbent, branched), and that a plant can form a mound up to 33 cm across.  The flowers on mine are 1 cm, the stems are up to 15 cm (growing in part shade), and the plant is about 20 cm across at the base after 10-12 years.   So I don't know!  
Are your plants quite young?  Are they growing in full sun?

Edit:  Here is an article by Graham Nicholls that says essentially what is in the book, and includes a nice photo:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://graplant.co.uk/chercegovina.jpg&imgrefurl=http://graplant.co.uk/Articles.html&usg=__7cjmr-StCYLa7bpQSrxRNhQKsPw=&h=157&w=206&sz=22&hl=en&start=2&tbnid=OVSovf4QYNgOIM:&tbnh=80&tbnw=105&prev=/images%3Fq%3DCampanula%2Bhercegovina%26hl%3Den

[Sinchets]

Campanula hercegovina 'Nana' as I have grown it, never made more than a film of leaves across the surface of the sunny, limestone scree it grew in. In fact I remember having to weed self sown Linaria supina out of its mats as it was so small. Will Ingwerson says it never grows taller than 5cm, mine was never taller than 2cm. Sadly it also never set seed, so I no longer have it. 
About the spelling - always difficult to transliterate the 'ts' sound into the roman alphabet- so lots of spelling around for C.herzegovina as well. Much easier when you write it as Херцеговина in Cyrillic

[Rodger Whitlock]

About the spelling - always difficult to transliterate the 'ts' sound into the roman alphabet- so lots of spelling around for C.herzegovina as well. Much easier when you write it as Херцеговина in Cyrillic

A lot of the confusion arises because in German, many letters do not have the same sound value as in English. In particular, German uses "z" for what English writes as "ts". And "w" for "v".

Thus Iris winogradowii is pronounced as if written per English spelling as vinogradovii. The specific epithet is a latinised version of the German transliteration of a Russian name, Веноградов. [I hope I've spelled that right!]

[Sinchets]

Personally, I think english would be so much easier to spell if it was written in Cyrillic script. 

[Lesley Cox]

And for most of us, Russian would be so much easier if it were written in English!

One of our major banks is currently making a big thing of the fact that their call centres (in India, surprise) are able to speak with their customers in 24 languages. My reaction to that is "what a pity one of them isn't English."

[Zdenek]

Well, I have gone through internet and some literature and learned that C. hercegovina is quite variable so that it is possible that my plant (which is very young) and Lori's plant, even that Sinchet's one are all that species. My plant has its leaves broader that Lori's one but both leaves have similarly teethed margins. So I am silent now.

[Sinchets]

Maybe there are more forms of the Campanula around, Zdenek, and some that say they are 'Nana' really are forms of the type species.
I have to say that Russian would be as hard to write in Roman script as Bulgarian is. The letters were developed to fit the sounds. So there are more letters than the 26 used to spell English. This helps to avoid the unnecessary use of more than one vowel or consonant for one sound in English, and also avoids the problems which come from having the same sound with several spelling possibilities- such as -er, -ar, -or, -ur, -o- etc.. Dipthongs are used, but the sound is always constant and predictable. As a former teacher, I know that most of the spelling mistakes made in English arise from the countless spelling choices students are presented with. Spelling when writing in Bulgarian is much easier.
Av u ad enuf jet?  
 

[David Nicholson]

And for most of us, Russian would be so much easier if it were written in English!

One of our major banks is currently making a big thing of the fact that their call centres (in India, surprise) are able to speak with their customers in 24 languages. My reaction to that is "what a pity one of them isn't English."

 

[Lori S.]

Not much of a plant, but as things seem slow here...    
This is actually the best it has looked to date, with 3 4(!  ) flowers at last... It definitely seems to be one that needs extraordinarily-good drainage (as compared to the many others that manage well in regular soil here).  Should do it a favour by moving it into the tufa bed, I reckon.
Campanula raineri 'Case':

[Paul T]

Zdenek,

Stunning Calceolaria, amongst other things.

Thanks everyone for their photos.

Lesley,

So it isn't just me who can't understand the call centre people?    I tend to now boycott people that have overseas cal centres if at all possible.  Just makes it easier to communicate.

BTW... I love the Russian comment..... applies to so many languages and can be translated into so many other languages.  I'm going to have to go and look up Cyrillic though, to work out which language Simon is talking about. 

I wish at times that we all had a single language, but knowing my luck the one they decided on as the universal language would be one that I couldn't understand.    Murphy's Law and all that. 

[Sinchets]

The Cyrillic alphabet, here called Kirilitsa, can be used to write some english words much easier than the Roman alphabet can. However, it does not have an analogue for a 'w' sound. The letter combination used to transliterate this sound in its various combinations looks messy in my opinion. Languages that used the Cyrillic alphabet, but changed to Roman alphabet (such as Serbian), use accents, or notations, on letters to change the sound, but again these sounds are standard and easier for a 'foreigner' to understand how to read than the english sound system. For example the two words 'boot' and 'foot' are spelled the same but the 'oo' hs a different sound in each word.

[Lori S.]

A couple of Saussurea nepalensis, from seed this year, have each formed a bud:

[Geebo]

Hi to all,
Talking about Campagnula`s,I'm afraid the campagnula I put in this post is not what I always taught,
I got this plant out of seed about 20 years ago- re Chilteren as C.fragilis,altough the plant is very fragile,but then lots of camp are of the same,handle me with care.I have the plants grown under protection of a pollytunnel but the last few Years the are growing outside in pots in a nursery bed and are behaving well even after a harsh winter last time,wet and cold,the are now flowering for the second time around.would anyone of the campagnula forumnist get me out of this confusion.

Great pics from all,thanks

Cheers 
Guy