Fritillaria 2010

[Janis Ruksans]

I received a bulb in 2007 labeled Fritillaria imperialis 'Aureomarginata'.  This year it is getting ready to bloom, 2 photos uploaded.  It is obviously not "Aureomarginata", but the leaves are rather handsome, light silvery color.  I wonder what it'll be like when flowering.  I'll post again when in flower.

It is persica, without doubt.
Janis

[ArnoldT]

Fritillaria meleagris alba

[ArnoldT]

A better image of Fritillaria  crassifolia kurdica

[Hans J]

some Frittilaria from my garden :

Frittilaria imperialis
Frittilaria meleagris
Frittilaria uva-vulpis

Hans

[Mark Griffiths]

sigh, I lost my post.

I'd appreciate the IDs on the first 3, all came as various things incl. F.tuntasia (!)

The F. recurva is from Archibald seed. Been giving a single spike for a decade, I made a hash of the top dressing and knocked the bulb but now I have 2 smaller spikes. Any hints on repotting this without the main bilb falling apart? I have lots of small ones and I think if they are ever going to get bigger they may need to be moved to a bigger pot and just left.

[Janis Ruksans]

Those two very different by color forms of F. gibbosa grew up from Archibalds seeds
The best of F, stenanthera forms from Aravan
Fritillaria minima SASA-121
Fritillaria aurea is very variable in height and size of flowers. On this picture you can see variable stocks of it.
Nice hybrid between Fritillaria aurea and fleischeriana raised in Gothenburg BG
Fritillaria crassifolia crassifolia and plant collected by me in Iran which looks something similar to subsp. kurdica, but I'm not certain about its name.

[Gerry Webster]

Fritillaria whittallii

From Frit Group seed (received as F. graeca).

[Lesley Cox]

Mark, the first of your 3 for ID is F. acmopetala. Wouldn't like to give an opiion on the others.

My recurva also came from Archibald and gradually has built to a good clump with an extra stem each year. I've twice repotted and removed a great many rice grains and though they take time, they do eventually grow on to flowering size. I think it's important to leave at least some in case the larger bulbs are damaged somehow. I'm planting some young ones out in the garden this autumn and hope they may grow bigger, quicker.

[Gerry Webster]

Mark - Although the flower is not fully developed I agree with Lesley that no 1 is probably F. acmopetala & maybe no 3 is too. No 2 may be F. hermonis amana   (or  F. amana).

It seems that these days bulbous plants are often either wrongly named or infected with virus or both.

[Janis Ruksans]

Mark - Although the flower is not fully developed I agree with Lesley that no 1 is probably F. acmopetala & maybe no 3 is too. No 2 may be F. hermonis amana   (or  F. amana).

It seems that these days bulbous plants are often either wrongly named or infected with virus or both.

Naming of plants is not easy. Even seeds from Botanic gardens in ~30% are wrongly named (in average). When plant is grown and named, no one more is checking how correct is name if some one are not specially working on that genus. Often plants are grown under names as they are received and so mistakes goes wider and wider. I try to check names of my Muscari, Ornithogalums, Alliums etc. but no good complete keys at present are available, too many new species described not included in keys, that it isn't wonder for some wrong names.

Regarding viruses peoples simply don't know symptoms, large nurseries give little attention to viruses which don't damage seriously plants (Muscari is excellent sample of this). I'm very carefully checking my stocks, but we had 3 or 4 years with poor blooming of Crocuses or with weather damaging flowers so seriously that no checking was possible and results now I can see on my plants - 3 stocks I destroyed yesterday completely, from a pair left only few plants (normally would be destroyed all stock, but those I like so much that will replant them separately for more checking in following years). But many stocks looked absolutely perfect or only 1-2 suspicious plant was removed from hundreds planted. Next checking will go by leaves after returning from my trip to Georgia. A lot of virused plants I found between old cultivars of Crocus tommasinianus and decided to destroy those stocks, too. Fortunately I have nice and better colored selections from John Grimshaw. It much demands from grower, how seriously he is looking on his job. I just got picture of leaves from my CARPATHIAN WONDER. I didn't like them and so I very carefully checked all my plantings of this beauty and I took out only 1 plant which was only slightly suspicious. All others were perfect. I marked 3 which had larger marks on petals and lilac flower tube, petals are wider and more rounded, may be will come up better form. I think it must be mutation as no seedlings could be between them.
Janis

[TheOnionMan]

Janis - That F. gibbosa from Archibald has great "gibbosity" doesn't it?  And the apical leaflets are more whirly-twirly.  F. minima is a cute one, although I like all of them.

Gerry - elegant flower form and checkering on F. whittallii.  Mine will be in bloom in a day or two, although I remember the flowers being not as flared as yours... I will post to compare when it flowers.

Mark G - your F. recurva is beautiful, congratulations.  I have tried it a couple time outside, each time it faded away after a couple years.

And now we can bask in the glory of F. eastwoodiae, a Californian species that is "the other red one", although flower color is variable in all shades of red, orange, salmon, and yellow.  See the CalPhotos link below:

http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?stat=BROWSE&query_src=photos_flora_sci&where-genre=Plant&where-taxon=Fritillaria+eastwoodiae&title_tag=Fritillaria+eastwoodiae

So there sits my lone leaf of F. eastwoodiae, yet another year happy to be a mere leaf, which is promising considering the quick demise of F. recurva when tried here.  In the corner of the photo is wavy-leaf Tulipa vvedenskyi.

[Mark Griffiths]

Many thanks for your replies. I am a bit confused where all these came from, I thought I had only two plants I thought were F.amana, but now it seems I have 3 different plants. The would have arrived as single bulbs decades ago. The "indelible" ink labels haven't helped but it's still a bit of a mystery.

I think I'll put all three of the green and brown ones shown here out, I was never too fond of 2.

I have a third F.amana which I prefer that I will retain in the greenhouse.

Hopefully I have F.eastwoodiae, but it's frit society again so we'll see.

Perhaps it's time to just get them from Archibald, so far all of those have been true.

Out of interest, what is the best time to sow the seed?

[Maggi Young]

August /September, for the seed, Mark.

[TheOnionMan]

Out of interest, what is the best time to sow the seed?

I sow seed directly in the garden right after harvesting the seed, typically in August. I get much better results this way.

[Martinr]

I was looking at a clump of Fritillaria meleagris in the garden this evening and though one of the bells looked broader shouldered than the others. Closer inspection revealed one flower stem with the flower parts in twelves instead of six with a four armed style and another with nine flower parts but this still only had a triffid style. The rest of the clump is 'normal'. Has anyone any experience of this sort of aberrant growth? photos attached.