Fritillaria 2012

[art600]

My Frits are flowering earlier this yera.

Ron

Here are some more Frit crassifolias from the Tendurek pass - someone thought they might be michailovskyi, so I include a Frit michailovskyi to compare

[Tony Willis]

Arthur when we found them we also thought they were michailovskyi

[ronm]

Lovely pictures Arthur. Was the F. michailovskyi on the same trip? same area? Why is this one F.michailovskyi? How do we physically differentiate this from F. crassifolia kurdica ?  Perhaps someone can explain? On his excellent web site 'Fritillaria Icones' (http://www.fritillariaicones.com/icones/kurdica.html), Dr.Lawrence Hill has a description and explanation of F.crassifolia kurdica, by Martin Rix. Unfortunately the detail is not the same for F. michailovskyi, and so we cannot compare using this resource alone. Similarly Bob Charman wrote a piece in Fritillaria Group Journal # 26, again highlighting the confusion. Similarly a description of F.crassifolia kurdica is given, but no direct written comparison with F. michailovskyi. I am not criticising either of these works ( I admire both ), just trying to show that there is much confusion in this area for many people. Usually we can fall back on seed pods ( I have had both and to me they are identical ), nectaries ( as far as I have seen they are the same ), style division ( divided trifid in both ) ...?
Was your plant from Tendurek Pass / Van area also Tony. I thought this one stood out because all others I have seen with these yellow tips have a yellowish line down the petal to the tip also, in varying degrees.
Maybe your plant is so happy in its situation Tony, that it feels no need to reproduce,

[Gerry Webster]

Rix in Flora of Turkey states that probable hybrids between the two are known to exist in Iran.

[ronm]

I suspect it may all come down to differences in the sulcus membrane of the pollen grains,

[Tony Willis]

Rix in Flora of Turkey states that probable hybrids between the two are known to exist in Iran.

.

He also states that it is strongly different to crassifolia in colour which it clearly is not if they can be mistaken for each other.Both species seem very variable in colour.

Ron mine is from the same site as Arthur's and the well known sites for where it was originally discovered in Turkey are about a hundred miles away but if it is known from Iran it must spread over the same area as . Mine will not self pollinate.

[ronm]

Are you thinking sterile hybrid Tony? Or possibly they are all one and the same very variable plant? Certainly it seems on the macro level some F.crassifolia kurdica and F.michailovskyi are very difficult to differentiate.
Here are two in my Frit house today that aren't, (visually that is !!).
F. crassifolia kurdica Iran
F. michailovskyi

[ronm]

or a more chequer pattern F.michailovskyi ...

[Wim de Goede]

A few frits in the bulb house today

The first two I need help with identification.

The third is Fritillaria strausii
The fourth is Fritillaria zagrica
and the last is Fritillaria crassifolia

Arthur, I think the first one is Frit. elwesii and the second can be Frit. minuta
Wim

[ronm]

Get so used to using a name and then ..... . I've only just noticed that Kew say F.crassifolia kurdica is a synonym of F.kurdica.

[Sinchets]

My F.crassifolia kurdica X michailovskyi primary hybrid was self fertile and from a plant with flowers intermediate between both parents I have F1 and F2, which are much more variable.

[ronm]

Did you find much variation when you 'selfed' your F. crassifolia kurdica and your F.michailovskyi Simon ?

[Sinchets]

Yes there was variation from my F.crassifolia kurdica- I'd be surprised if any offspring of this kind of Frit exactly resembled its parent.
I posted pics here a few years ago of the hybrid F1s. The original hybrid parent looked like F.michailovskyi, but with more chequering in the 'brown' part of the flower. The offspring were more like F.crassifolia kurdica, with the darkest form having much more chequering than the parent.

If wild F.michailovskyi populations are as variable as F.pontica is here, then there will surely be more forms out there than those written about or seen in books. The forms we have in cultivation are, I am sure, the ones which caught the eye of their collector. I am sure that many more were overlooked, because they didn't jump out and say "Dig me up" as it were. 

Also if you think about it- it wouldn't take many wild hybridisation events to produce wild populations with quite variable forms.

[ronm]

Thanks Simon, very interesting. 

[ronm]

http://www.srgc.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=4972.msg148614#msg148614