Dianthus Erinacea ?

[robg]

I've just googled on this and been told it doesn't exist !  And yet I got it I don't know how many years ago from the alpine nursery of John Ponton, and carefully marked its name and position in a notebook. 

The reason for asking is that it has survived in a very dry sink after everything else found it too dry and the sink is about to be rebuilt as only this plant and sedum capa blanca are alive.  I've got 6 pots of each. 

I don't have a photo, but it is a prostrate shrubby thing with small pink dianthus like flowers about 5mm across which will come in about a month or so..

Thanks

Rob
Edinburgh

[Brian Ellis]

Is this it Rob

http://www.kadel.cz/flora/Images/WebSize/227.jpg

Dianthus erinaceus

[Maggi Young]

Brian is correct, Rob ,  D. erinaceaus is the hedgehog dianthus.. can be an absolute savage with the sharpest spines and sometimes rather shy to flower but very nice if you have one which gives good flowers.
We had a fat one in a show pot which  we affectionately called  'Spike' , who would have impaled an elephant if his spines had been longer! We also had a cute one in the garden which naturally took on a hedgehog shape, so we encouraged it with a little pruning and soon had a vegetable hedeghog ( in the spirit of NZs vegetable sheep) that ended up quite a size. all this in the slide days pre digital, so no pix anytime soon. The one in the pot went to become hundreds of cuttings at a nursery and the garden Spike died when we tried to move him after he became overgrown with other things which spoiled his foliage. We didn't get many flowers here, though they were a good  clear pink when they appeared.

[hadacekf]

Maggi is correct.  D. erinaceaus is the hedgehog dianthus.. can be an absolute savage with the sharpest spines and sometimes rather shy to flower but very nice if you have one which gives good flowers.

[Maggi Young]

Oh, HO! And those ARE great flowers, Franz! So deep pink and so big.. what a fine form.... have you grown this from wild seed from your travels?

[Lesley Cox]

All the above is correct, of course. And yes, Franz, a very good form for both flowers and colour.

My biggest plant lived to 23 years old and 50cms across, a seedling from the original ACW collection of 1966 but then I moved house and took the whole plant with me (in a large box on the front seat of the car, children and cat in the back) but such a big plant didn't like the shift and even though replanted immmediately we arrived, and a jolly painful job THAT was, it died. At that time I had not been able to root cuttings, though I have done since and do most years. However, I had a single seedling from the big one and that survived - and still does - a deeper shade and freer flowering than the original.
Experience tells me that it will flower much better if it has lots of water in the early to mid spring period, just as it's about to start thinking of producing buds. If too dry, it still makes masses of buds but they abort before showing colour.

If it's in the garden or a raised bed or trough as distinct from a pot, it flowers on the sunny side first then gradually the buds develop towards the back as the front ones are dying off. Seed collection is one of the most painful tasks known to womankind and is best done with long bladed tweezers.

[robg]

Well thanks a lot for all the answers, guys, BUT although it seems to fit the description you all give, it definitely is not 'hedgehog' in nature.  I quite happily, and without damage, howked it out of the sink and planted up a number of sections with roots on them.  Slightly curious though as somewhere in the back of my mind is a memory that it was prickly.  Possibly with age and lack of moisture it has given up it's thorns !  It certainly has been a survivor as last's summer's drought did for everything else in that sink as I was involved in a major project and watering sinks got forgotten about.

Rob

[hadacekf]

Maggi,
Alas! I never saw Dianthus erinaceus in the wild. My plant grows from seeds which I received from Brian Burrow - Lancaster. It is the best flowering plant that I got from the seedlings. The others were shy or no flowering. I got also no seeds from my plants and the cuttings made not any roots! For myself it is a difficult dianthus.

[Maggi Young]

Brian Burrow knows a good plant when he sees one, so it is no surprise that Dianthus seed from him makes good plants like yours, Franz!

[Lesley Cox]

Rob, if yours actually IS Dianthus erinaceus, it is even more vicious when dry or in its death throes. The stabs are exceedingly painful and minute tips will embed in the skin for days and even become infected if not removed carefully.

[robg]

Well, all the pointers are this NOT being Dianthus Erinaceus !  It certainly doesn't qualify on the grounds of prickliness if nothing else whether in death throes or otherwise; the flowers on Franz' plant are too big and it has reproduced itself vegetatively quite happily - perhaps that doesn't count as taking cuttings !

I will just have to wait till it flowers, which may not be till next year now to get an ident.

Thanks everyone - any suggestions on other very small bushy dianthus that it could be ?

Rob

[David Shaw]

I have tried Dianthus erinaceus a couple of times from the seed exchange - all the plants were soft foliage! I have one pink hedgehog bought from Jim Sutherland and will stick with that.
My desire was always to put one on the show bench and move the 'Do Not Touch The Plants' sign!

[Anthony Darby]

I have a big one which looks rather like a spikey bum sticking out of the rockery. Lucy sat on it last year.

[Maggi Young]

Note, of course, that  the flowers on Franz' Dianthus erinaceus are not typical... they are large and avery deep pink. Usual forms are pale almost washy pink and only about 5mm across and seldom produced so freely. Franz' is a smasher!

[hadacekf]

I do have also so not so beautifully and richly flowering plants of D.erinaceus. I think, everyone photographs only its beautiful plants - or not. Some other good flowering plant.