E-magazine feature on SRGC Website

[Maggi Young]

 Welcome to year twelve of the IRG at a time when we sincerely hope that the coming year will see a return to more ordinary activities that we are all used to, with freedom of travel and congregation. The lack of opportunity to meet up with like-minded plant lovers has been a much-regretted downside of the past year and gardeners, as some of the most sociable folk around, have certainly found the lockdowns wearing – if a good chance to catch up on weeding!

 Authors this month are Wim Boens from Flanders, Jim Jermyn from Scotland and Zdeněk Zvolánek from Czechia.

 https://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2021Jan281611871267IRG133.pdf



Cover image: Meconopsis ‘Sikkim’ at Branklyn Garden – photo by Jim Jermyn.

[Maggi Young]

 In IRG 134 - Jānis Rukšāns from Latvia with the description of a new Leopoldia species.
Next, from Chile, Anita and John Watson give us an awareness of how the corona virus and their subsequent recovery from the infection, has affected them and how much comfort they have found in their garden.
Finally this month, Connor Smith, now  working  at the  Utrecht Botanical Garden  gives his views on the potential for some smaller Rubus species in the rock garden.

https://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2021Feb251614279736IRG134.pdf



Cover image: convovulus arvensis - photo Anita Flores

[Maggi Young]

IRG 135 is now online.

A month with our usual variety of plants, places and people - thanks to our contributors, we are able to bring this magazine free to all on the internet. Articles from John and Anita Watson in Chile, on Mutisia; Wim Boens from Flanders on an old colchicum cultivar; and Chris and Basak Gardner  of Viranatura on some  flowers  of the  Silk Route.

Click to download the  issue  here:  https://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2021Mar251616709854IRG_135.pdf

Cover image:  Omphalodes luciliae  photo Chris Gardner.


Chris and Basak's  company ...

[Maggi Young]

IRG 136 is now online.

Colchicums exposed! Special issue  dedicated to  a richly illustrated article by Ukrainian plantsman,    Dr Dimitri Zubov,   on cultivated Colchicum Species - click the link to read for  free - https://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2021Apr291619719761IRG_136.pdf

[Maggi Young]

Monthly free e-magazine IRG (International Rock Gardener)  May 2021

Discover how a garden & a chance to make even small outings to see plants in nature can help to get us through a pandemic  from John and Anita Watson - plus discover the fun in  selecting plants from seed from a Czech master grower - read here:

https://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2021May271622135578IRG_137.pdf


Cover image: Echinopsis chiloensis flower,photo Anita Rosa Flores(Anita Watson).

[Maggi Young]

IRG 138 June 2021:  the artistry of Czech Rock Master, Martin Brejník; Potentilla lignosa admired; and the description of Oxalis ranchillos, a new  species from Chile, by John and Anita Flores Watson.
 Read all free here: https://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2021Jun241624568360138.pdf


Oxalis ranchillos, photo by John M. Watson

[Maggi Young]

This month IRG presents two articles on peonies – the first on Czech bred herbaceous peonies from Pavel Sekerka & the second on tree peonies by Joe Harvey in Canada. Next there are two articles on a fabled European gesneriad, Jankaea heldreichii,  written by Vlastimil Pilous & Harry Jans, of the Netherlands. IRG 139 finishes with a short review on Sternbergia, again by Vlastimil Pilous.

Read free here: https://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2021Jul291627592049IRG_139.pdf



 The Czech articles were  translated by M. Young

[Maggi Young]

In IRG 140 August 2021, a new fritillary species from the Fergana Valley, southern Kyrgyzstan,  Fritillaria rugillosa (subgen. Rhinopetalum; Liliaceae) is described by Alexander Naumenko and Dimitri Zubov.

Second article  is Patagonian Verbenas - Junellia ( part 1) by Martin Sheader, a marine biologist from Southampton, who is known for a  great interest in all plants.   Dr Sheader has travelled extensively in this part of South America and his book ‘Flowers of the Patagonian Mountains’ is the most comprehensive photographic guide yet published to the area’s diverse and fascinating flora.   
Click the link to download and read - it's free!
https://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2021Aug261630008637IRG_140.pdf


Cover image: Junellia tridactylites, showing the three-lobed leaves. Photo Martin Sheader.

[Maggi Young]

What's new in IRG 141? -download it here to find out -
https://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2021Sep231632431076IRG_141.pdf

A new fritillary species from south-eastern Kazakhstan is described by Jānis Rukšāns & Dimitri Zubov,
Fritillaria kolbintsevii.

Chris Gardner of Viranatura Tours  praises the gentian family in summer.

 Zdeněk Zvolánek discusses a great cyclamen from the late  Jan Bravenboer  & there  are  details of the new concise  Guide to Cyclamen from Martyn Denney & the Cyclamen Society - (which was reviewed  in the  latest Bulb Log - here. 



Seedheads of Fritillaria kolbintsevii

[Maggi Young]

IRG 142 for October 2021 is now online :
 https://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2021Oct281635433923IRG_142.pdf

(There may be a delay in getting the  link on the new SRGC Website, but all issues of the IRG are still available on this page:  https://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/index.php?log=international )

Contributions this month are from Australia, the Czech Republic and California, via Turkey! Alan Ayton writes about Tasmanian plants, Dr Vlastimil Pilous introduces some Gymnospermium from the interesting family, Berberidaceae and Chris Gardner of Vira Natura makes his first trip to America after the relaxation of travel during the Covid pandemic to reconnoitre future trip destinations.


Cover image of IRG 142 - Dracophyllum persistentifolium (syn. Richea scoparia), photo Alan Ayton.



Viola aurata on cover of new viola monograph  - photo by Ana F. Watson

https://www.srgc.net/documents/publications/Viola%20monograph.pdf

We are also proud to announce the  publication  ( update- 9th Feb. 2022 )   of a new edition of  a Viola Monograph of  Viola subgenus Neoandinium : see here

"Viola subgenus Neoandinium, Preliminary Monograph - Second Edition"
by Watson, Flores,
Nicola & Marcussen (2022)

This is the latest edition of a monograph of the spectacular South American rosulate violas which has been written by experts in their field. John and Anita Watson live in Chile, and have studied violas in exhaustive detail for many years. This is a valuable summary of the current state of knowledge of these plants.

"Viola subgenus Neoandinium Marcussen vs. Viola subgenus Andinium (W. Becker) Marcussen -  note from john M. Watson:

We originally published this infrageneric name as Viola subgenus Andinium (W. Becker) Marcussen in the IRG special issue of October last year (2021), but for technical reasons I won't go into here our academic colleague and coauthor Thomas Marcussen discovered that our definition did not comply with Becker's 1925 original. He therefore altered it to the new version Viola subgenus Neoandinium Marcussen which has also been published in the IRG as a replacement, and is correct. Viola subgenus Andinium (W. Becker) Marcussen should therefore be ignored.

[Maggi Young]

IRG 143 for November 2021 is now online.

This IRG is something of an ‘Australian Special’. Jamus Stonor brings a large selection of Australian orchids; Alan Ayton takes us on a trip in the Victorian Alps and Fermi de Sousa shares some of the plants in his garden in the month of October as Spring brings its delights.

Click the link to read: https://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2021Nov251637860754IRG143.pdf 

Cover image: Olearia frostii, photo, Alan Ayton.

[Maggi Young]

Online early, for your holiday reading pleasure! 

IRG 144  https://www.srgc.net/documents/irg/211230104805IRG144.pdf

As many around the world celebrate a holiday period, the IRG Team wishes
all its readers kind greetings of the season and good hopes for health and
happiness in the coming year. Of course, we wish the same for your plants!
After one hundred and forty years, a species of Oxalis, long thought lost, has
been rediscovered, in part thanks to the IRG. Julian Shaw of the Royal
Horticultural Society writes about the rediscovery of Oxalis brevis.
Staying in South America, we learn of a lovely new Euphrasia species in Chile, from David Santos,
John Watson and Ana Rosa Flores. The Eyebrights are generally rather overlooked, which is
sometimes the case for these charming flowers, which can be tricky to grow in cultivation. This
extremely rare species is most unlikely ever to come into cultivation, but it is wonderful to learn
about it, nonetheless.
Fresh from a fact-checking trip to Kos, Jānis Rukšāns describes a new species, Crocus samarsii
and two more new Crocus (Iridaceae) species from Turkey and Chios. These are Crocus erolii
from Turkey, named for Prof. Osman Erol, of Istanbul University and Crocus homeri from Chios.
Crocus samarsii is named for Theodoros Samaras, who discovered this novelty.
The last article is a book review by J. Ian Young of an excellent publication, “A Field Guide to the
Plants of Armenia” by Tamar Galstyan from Filbert Press.


IRG 144 Cover image: Euphrasia achibuenoensis - photo by David Santos.


Edit: IRG144 link on SRGC.org.uk changed to show repaired version.
https://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2021Dec291640808762IRG144.pdf

[Maggi Young]

‘International Rock Gardener’ is this month dedicated to new plant species.

Firstly  IRG 145 of January 2022 features the publication of a new tulip species by J.J. de Groot & B.J.M. Zonneveld  from the Kuh e Aladag in Iran’s North Khorasan province. They have named this tulip for the plantlover and explorer who collected the seeds of this plant, Marijn van den Brink. 

We also have a new viola species from the tireless hands of John and Anita Watson in Chile.  This is Viola obituaria, named in commemoration of a tragedy where 44 young conscripts and a sergeant froze to death. As John writes, “In this instance it is intended as a public written remembrance of a tragic incident on 12th May 2005 which befell a group of about four hundred young Chilean military conscripts on a night training march around the Antuco volcano.”

Finally this month we have a paper from Julian M.H. Shaw,  Bleddyn Wynn-Jones and T.Y. Aleck Yang  of a new Sarcococca endemic to Taiwan.

Julian Shaw is a registrar with the Royal Horticultural Society: he recently confirmed the re-finding of Oxalis brevis in IRG 144.  Bleddyn Wynn-Jones ( with his wife, Sue) runs Crűg Farm Plants, in Wales, known for so many fine plant introductions over more than ten years.  T.Y. Aleck Yang  works at the National Museum of Natural Science, Taiwan.

Click here to download IRG 145; 
https://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2022Jan271643317218IRG_145.pdf


cover image: Volcan Antuco, Chile, photo John Watson

[Maggi Young]

This month  IRG presents  a wonderful photo essay by Frédéric Depalle of one of his favourite subjects - Oncocyclus Irises. Frédéric Depalle is a keen plantsman, a most accomplished photographer, both of plants and “land-based” subjects as well as another of his passions, underwater photography.  I believe even those of us unable to grow, or even source, these irises will be captivated by Fred’s photographs.
 
One of the many good Czech friends of the Scottish Rock Garden Club, is Zdeněk Řeháček  and he writes about the bright golden Viola aetolica. A little charmer of a plant that is not widely grown in the UK.

Final article for IRG 146 is on “Growing Acantholimon “ from the Scot, Connor Smith who has already been in the Netherlands for over a year, in his post at the Utrecht University Botanic Garden.  Connor instituted the Scottish Rock Podcasts and it is hoped these will soon be able to return.

This month’s cover image is “Green seedpods of Iris lineolata  in Armenia” –  photo by Frédéric Depalle.

Download the issue here:
https://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2022Feb241645737266IRG146.pdf

[Maggi Young]

Another exciting issue of IRG, which introduces new species to teach us more about the tremendous diversity of plants.  This month we learn about a new Leopoldia sp. from the Latvian Dr Janis Ruksans and the famous  Swedish plantsman, Henrik Zetterlund. New names are also proposed for seven Muscari as Leopoldia.
For the second article this month Jānis works with his Ukranian colleague, Dimitri Zubov, to bring us a new Colchicum species. This is Colchicum kackarense, a new autumn-blooming species from the Kaçkar Mountains in north-eastern Turkey.  Dr Zubov, as well as his work at the State Institute of Genetic and Regenerative Medicine of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine, is a passionate and knowledgeable plantsman, especially famous for his work with bulbous plants. 
So, a typically international issue of IRG – with cooperation around the world to bring this to our readers.  We hope you enjoy it!

https://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2022Mar241648143669IRG_147.pdf


Cover image; Hummocks of sandy tufa in Cappadocia, Turkey, where Leopoldia parvipoldia grows: photo by Jānis Rukšāns