Allium 2011

[wmel]

Roland, Mark and Janis,

My Silver Spring is comming from C.S. Wijers / Hillegom, And as far as I know they inported the bulbs from Israel. Also, for as far as I know they give the (work) name "Silver Spring". We had the same problem as Janis had with virus in the plants and they bloom only one year with us before I lost them, An other problem is the growing starts before the winter, they are about 10 centimeter high when the real winter starts and they do not like to much frost.
We have now for the second year flowers from seed. They are very healthy and giving good seed, but never any ofsets/bulblet's.
The only way to get more is by seed, and the seeds come almost true , with a little difference in colour from pure white to a little soft-pink.
Virus is a big problem (I think) in israel, were the grow these allium as cutflower. Last year we bought some allium aschersonianum from israel. We planted 100 bulbs, they al were very virus-sick and only 3 gave flowers this spring, so we start with seed again.....

I notice that your A. cupanii is darker pink than forms I've grown, where is your plants from?  I grew A. cupanii ssp. hirtovaginatum from Turkey, and it was a much paler pink.

Mark, I am not sure where my cupanii came from, But it just starts flowering, maby next week the colour is a bit more pale, But it could be the ground to, because we grow them in clay. normaly you get more pale flowers by growing in sand.

[Lesley Cox]

I noticed yesterday that the small bulbils (about 1.5cms across) I retrieved from the seed head of Allium (I have as) 'Globus,' are starting to come through. From pictures here recently I think maybe it isn't 'Globus' but I'll take pictures later when it flowers. The bulb was very big, about 6cms across.

[bulborum]

Lesley

It has large bulbs
A. Globus is a hybrid from
A. giganteum and A. christophii
very normal that he makes more flower-stems
like A. violet beauty

Roland

[Lesley Cox]

Thanks Roland and just as well you posted about it because I'm totally off key. I went to see if my single bulb was through yet and found it isn't 'Globus' at all, but is labelled 'Gladiator.' Don't know where the 'Globus' came from, probably just from reading about it here. Maybe the 'Moan, Moan, Moan' thread offers an explanation.

[TheOnionMan]

Photos of Allium 'Globus' from 2006.  I grew these for about 5 years then like many of the large-headed Melanocrommyum allium they started dying out, and are no longer living in my garden.

[Lesley Cox]

The "real" 'Globus' is a really handsome plant Mark. Not that I'm complaining mind you, my 'Gladiator' (assuming THAT name is correct) gave me 5 stems from the single bulb. I see from the picture that the leaves were just about died away by the time the flowers were out.

I picked up the pot with the babies in a short while ago and the roots are 10cms long out the bottom already!

[Janis Ruksans]

The "real" 'Globus' is a really handsome plant Mark. Not that I'm complaining mind you, my 'Gladiator' (assuming THAT name is correct) gave me 5 stems from the single bulb. I see from the picture that the leaves were just about died away by the time the flowers were out.

I picked up the pot with the babies in a short while ago and the roots are 10cms long out the bottom already!

GLOBUS was raised in former Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) in Hermanuv Mestec breeding station. It is medium high, good grower and increaser but completely sterile - never got any seed of it. In last years it became weeker grower, I suppose due climate changes. Many Alliums which I grew outside without problems and had large stocks now every spring suffers from late frosts and my stocks decrease. They are too cheap for growing under cover, so I'm much thinking to stop their growing at all although many are selected just by me and in my nursery.
Janis

[wmel]

Today we harvested some new crossings of allium stipitatum and aflatunense (from Janis Ruksans).
The biggest bulb was almost 18 centimeter and 1.4 kilo! (see photo)

[Janis Ruksans]

Today we harvested some new crossings of allium stipitatum and aflatunense (from Janis Ruksans).
The biggest bulb was almost 18 centimeter and 1.4 kilo! (see photo)

Phantastic! I hear about 2 kg Lilium bulbs (Caucasian), but for Allium? Almost incredible.
Janis

[Stephenb]

Amazing! Perhaps you should launch it as a new vegetable too. A. aflatunense is wild collected as a vegetable (there's currently a lot of interest in novel perennial vegetables):

http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Allium aflatunense

(I've never tried eating them...)

[Maggi Young]

Only perennial if one eats the foliage and not the bulbs though.... 

[Lesley Cox]

My 'Gladiator' also set no seeds but among the non-capsules were 5 bulbils on just one of the 5 stems. I'm quite happy with increase at that rate.

[bulborum]

Allium Gladiator

This one is a cross between A. hollandicum (syn. A. aflatunense of Hort.) x macleanii (probably)
there is a lot of discussion for A. aflatunense
what is the real name
finally the botanist will make the last word
but I am still using A. aflatunense
Till they are sure for a name for ten years
I changed too often

Roland

[TheOnionMan]

Allium Gladiator

This one is a cross between A. hollandicum (syn. A. aflatunense of Hort.) x macleanii (probably)
there is a lot of discussion for A. aflatunense
what is the real name
finally the botanist will make the last word
but I am still using A. aflatunense
Till they are sure for a name for ten years
I changed too often

Roland

My understanding of A. aflatunense is that the bulb mass produced in Holland for decades and sold as A. aflatunense, wasn't!  There is of couse, a true Allium aflatunense; but most of us have never seen the true Allium aflatunense.  To address the misnamed plant so long mass-produced as A. aflatunense, with rare acquiescence to the situation, the wrongly named plant, one indelibly established in horticulture but for which taxonomists could not conclusively explain what it was, was described in Latin and published as a new taxonomic entity in 1993 as A. hollandicum by Dr. Reinhard Fritsch, thus a "species" only known in cultivation sourced from Holland.

So, with some certainty, there is Allium hollandicum (syn. A. aflatunense of HORT) for these past 18 years, and there does exist true Allium aflatunense, which most of us do not grow.

[bulborum]

And here you can make live so much easier
there are taxonomic rules
and then you have exceptions for rules
it seems nobody wants to use

there exist a plant nobody knows
where it grows but maybe exist
and a plant who everybody knows
with a wrong name

it was so much easier in 1993
as A. aflatunense by Dr. Reinhard Fritsch
was renamed to A. hollandicum by not doing this
just make a marking
and by the time the real A. aflatunense is found
to give this one an other name

but taxonomist are ......................................

Roland