Saxifraga burseriana in cultivation

[adrian young]

Dear Saxifrage Friends
I am interested to see which plants of S. burseriana are in cultivation.
Both wild collected plants and also cultivars.
Below is a list of the plants that I grow at Waterperry

B. Arundel  fm.
Brookside
Coll. Karawanken
Coll. Schlern S1
Coll. Yugoslavia
Crenata
Crenulata
Duncan Lowe fm.
Falstaff
John Tomlinson
Magna
Magnifica
Mangart
Muffet
Notched seedling
Prince Hal
Princess
Seissera
Snowflake
var. burseriana

I would appreciate it very much if you could inform me
which plants of S. burseriana are in your collection.
This will help us build up a picture of what is in cultivation.

I am considering setting up a trial of all S. burseriana so we can
produce a report with descriptions, as I and others suspect
that there has been some mixing of the plants and names.
S. burseriana ‘Gloria’ is certainly represented by several imposters
and it would be good to get back to Farrers original plant if
that is possible.

Thanks,
Adrian

[Luc Gilgemyn]

I've been growing this for many years as Saxifraga burseriana major ?

[adrian young]

Thanks for that Luc
Can you say if this plant ever has two flowers per stem?
There are some clones of burseriana from N.E.Italy
(Bolzano/Trentino district)
that frequently display that characteristic.
Do you know where your plant came from?

[ruweiss]

Adrian, this plant is a cutting of a plant which was collected more than 30 years ago in the Seissera,
the variation of S. burseana in this region is truly amazing.

[adrian young]

That is an interesting plant Rudi.
It is different to the normal plant of S.bur.Seissera
found in the UK and Czech Republic.
Look at the picture I posted earlier of this clone.
I believe it was collected in 1975 by Hams Simon at
Italian Julian Alps, Mt. Montasio, Saisera Valley.
Your plant has scalloped edges to the petals
and clear crenation over the full petal length.
Maybe there were more clones collected at this location

[alpinelover]

I have a Saxifraga burseriana var. burseriana. Very rich and early flowering and very slow growing.

[alpinelover]

Thanks for that Luc
Can you say if this plant ever has two flowers per stem?
There are some clones of burseriana from N.E.Italy
(Bolzano/Trentino district)
that frequently display that characteristic.
Do you know where your plant came from?

Saxifraga burseriana in the Trentino district? That's the regio, where I go on holiday this summer. Something to look forward.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Thanks for that Luc
Can you say if this plant ever has two flowers per stem?
There are some clones of burseriana from N.E.Italy
(Bolzano/Trentino district)
that frequently display that characteristic.
Do you know where your plant came from?

I've checked my pictures of the last few years but found no two flowers on one stem Adrian.
I obtained the plant over 15 years ago (the present plant is a cutting from the original one) from a local Belgian nursery - I'm afraid I have no idea from it's origin   

[adrian young]

Saxifraga burseriana in the Trentino district? That's the regio, where I go on holiday this summer. Something to look forward.
[/quote]
You want Mount Sciliar, near to Kastelruth, walk through the pine woods to you see
the dry river bed, the sax is on large boulders in and around the dry river.

[Lesley Cox]

We in NZ now have only what we know as S b. 'Gloria' though there were others at one stage some years ago. We had 'Crenata' and 'His Majesty.' Maybe they're still in some collections.

[David Sellars]

Adrian:
Thanks for this; an interesting and valuable exercise regarding one of my favourite plants.  I have an un-named cultivar of Saxifraga burseriana plus a few named forms growing in the garden:
Crenata
Ganymede
Snowdon
Seissera

My favourite is Snowdon  - great name and large flowers. Here's an image from last spring.

[Magnar]

I have S. burseriana v burseriana and S. x burseriana Clarissa

[adrian young]

We in NZ now have only what we know as S b. 'Gloria' though there were others at one stage some years ago. We had 'Crenata' and 'His Majesty.' Maybe they're still in some collections.

That is an interesting looking Gloria, the flowers look quite big and full,
although I see it has red flower stems and Gloria has green stems
according to Mr Farrer. Although I would not rule it out because of that.
Flower stem colour is strongly influenced by growing condition's plus
weather and light levels.

[adrian young]

David
S.burseriana is a classic Alpine plant, I love this species
and there are some great cultivars, its unfortunate that
they have got mixed up, its nothing new, when I first got into
Alpines in 1970's there were mixed up then. I believe Gloria was
lost as a clone around 90 years ago when nurseries started
selling it raised from seed.
Snowden is a good clone, I wish we knew who raised it.
There is also a good Hosta cultivar, raised by Eric Smith called Snowden.
I intent to go back to N.E.Italy ASAP to Mt.Sciliar near Kastelruth
and collect some good forms from the location that Farrer collected seed
that gave us Gloria.
Like your pic David -:)

[Lesley Cox]

We in NZ now have only what we know as S b. 'Gloria' though there were others at one stage some years ago. We had 'Crenata' and 'His Majesty.' Maybe they're still in some collections.

That is an interesting looking Gloria, the flowers look quite big and full,
although I see it has red flower stems and Gloria has green stems
according to Mr Farrer. Although I would not rule it out because of that.
Flower stem colour is strongly influenced by growing condition's plus
weather and light levels.

You highlight what is a problem here for us Adrian and has been for many years. A number of Porophyllum (Kabschia) saxes were brought into NZ many years ago, perhaps the 60s and 70s, and without a doubt, many were wrongly named. The seller(s) of them subsequently, probably didn't care too much about the names or were unable to compare with true material anyway (books such as Mansfield are impossible to use for identifying) and wrong names were perpetuated. Since then of course, we are not able to import new stock either of old vars to check against, or of the newer species and of the hundreds of new hybrids, so we are stuck with very few at all, perhaps half a dozen older plants, not always correctly named, and no way to correct the names or to introduce new stock. What we need is some seed sources, people who grow these plants so that we can raise our own plants.

What I posted was what we have as 'Gloria' but I certainly wouldn't stake my life on it. You being who you are, if you care to suggest a more likely name, I'd be happy to go along with that. I got quite a lot of seed from my 'Gloria' this year and have sent some to friends but have sown the rest. It will be interesting to see if there is variation in the progeny.