Pulsatilla 2013

[Lesley Cox]

I was thrilled this year, a very wet spring year, to have my first flower ever on P. alpina ssp apiifolia which I've tried from seed several times only to have them very slow to start with then die before maturing. This one grew quickly and had a single gorgeous flower. I didn't take a picture because a small something had eaten a hole in the bud which opened to all petals with the little hole. Next spring, and in a damper garden.....?

I'm finding this thread wonderfully exciting. Please continue with it Susann and Olga and everyone else too.

[Lesley Cox]

It was mentioned, I think by Susann that one species had stems taller than she would expect for the species pictured and I wonder if this could be accounted for by natural variation, as Tim suggests or by climate. I am fortunate in growing and flowering P. vernalis quite well and regularly but always in the centre of a good bunch of greenery yet I have seen (here on the Forum and elsewhere), P. vernalis flowering seemingly from bare soil, almost no leaves showing at all. Always these plants are growing in MUCH colder climates than mine.

[Tim Ingram]

It is rather exciting when you start lookiing at plants closely like this isn't it? Like a really good discussion over dinner. That last picture of Susann's is extraordinary and much more anemone-like than pulsatilla, I would have thought. But what of Anemone/Pulsatilla occidentalis? I would have said that was more pulsatilla-like than anemone, yet it now seems to be classified as the latter. The botanist has a harder time than the gardener, and whoever sees the plants in the field must get the best feel for species and distributions. I have a feeling there might be a lot more pulsatillas being grown as a result of this thread!

[Olga Bondareva]

Talking about yellows and albana group. My first P. albana is from Caucasus, Elbrus region.





Another one I grew from Czech seeds is white



P. violacea is a violet-flowered species from the group

[Olga Bondareva]

P patens x vernalis. Could it be? They belong to different subsections but the might grow in same areas.

Picture doesn't open correctly to me and I can't see plant's leaves.
But the hybrid sometimes occurs at the regions where both species grow. Thats s a fact. Usually hybrid plants have strong brown vernalis hairs (instead of white patens) and leaves somewhat between two species.

I grow only ordinary vernalis.

[Olga Bondareva]

I was thrilled this year, a very wet spring year, to have my first flower ever on P. alpina ssp apiifolia which I've tried from seed several times only to have them very slow to start with then die before maturing. This one grew quickly and had a single gorgeous flower. I didn't take a picture because a small something had eaten a hole in the bud which opened to all petals with the little hole. Next spring, and in a damper garden.....?

Many times I tried seed of different ssp. of P. alpina. And like you Lesley I have only one plant. My experience is seedlings can not be transplanted. They die after root disturbing.

Although the plant was so hard to grow I do not like it very much. It looks more like Anemone or even Adonis. And it does not set fertile seed growing alone.

[Olga Bondareva]

Change of subject; Olga told me today she has found two Russians that put P turczaninovii as a ssp of vulgaris respective ssp of grandis. For me, grandis is a ssp itself. Why did I start this thread, we get more and more confused.  (And as I think I wrote before, Aichele claims ambigua is a ssp of turczaninovii.)

Susann I promise you to investigate this detective story.  I want to find where paratype is located and look at it and photograph. I suspect of a fault somewhere at the way from description to description.

P kostyczewii,  a very strange intermediar between Pulsatilla and Anemone.

Wish it rooted as easy as anemones... No sucsess. 

[Jozef Lemmens]

Quote from Susann
P kostyczewii,  a very strange intermediar between Pulsatilla and Anemone.

Wish it rooted as easy as anemones... No sucsess. 

Susann, Olga, (or anyone else) can you tell something about your way of cultivating this species?
I had this plant as P. jarmilae from seeds collected by J. Halda. The plant flowered well and I had a nice big plant with many runners, but the plant died in winter. I had still one small plant in a plastic pot and I tried to root a “runner”, but I didn’t succeed.
I heard from other people that they had the same experience. All their plants died, except the runners that rooted in the sand bed along their original pot.

[Olga Bondareva]

Susann, Olga, (or anyone else) can you tell something about your way of cultivating this species?

Jozef, I was not successful rooting runners.  This is why I've never grown the species. I only saw it in Czech alpine houses. And I knew the same it goes well only in dry sand.

[Diane Clement]

But what of Anemone/Pulsatilla occidentalis? I would have said that was more pulsatilla-like than anemone, yet it now seems to be classified as the latter. 

But that reclassification also takes all of Pulsatilla into Anemone (and Hepatica also ) .  It's the older classification that is now regarded as priority.  Anemone pulsatilla and Anemone hepatica were the old names.  It has not been completely sorted as the two genus pages in the Plant List take some into Anemone and leave some behind.  Obviously some more work to do: 
http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl/search?q=pulsatilla#Pulsatilla-O
http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl/search?q=hepatica

This is an excellent thread, thanks for all the contributions.  It's a really good reference thread.
 

[Armin]

Armin, perhaps this will help you with your halleri? It is in a language I think you will enjoy!

Susann,
thank you very much for the key for P. halleri. I will have to count the leaves points and overall leaf dimensions...

After all posts and comments my impression is that pulsatilla genus is as complicated as crocus genus and often confusing in the naming.
I hope one day a phylogenetic systematic analysis will be available for pulsatillas too, it will certainly help to clear up classification, speci, sub-species and variation status.
But for the time being I continue to enjoy any pulsatilla growing and flowering successfully in my garden and all the marvelous images on the forum

[olegKon]

Many times I tried seed of different ssp. of P. alpina. And like you Lesley I have only one plant. My experience is seedlings can not be transplanted. They die after root disturbing.

Although the plant was so hard to grow I do not like it very much. It looks more like Anemone or even Adonis. And it does not set fertile seed growing alone.
 
I was luckier then you, Olga, with P.alpina ssp.alpina. Fresh seed gave nice germination and I had more than 50 seedlings (didn't know what to do with all of them, actually), so I wasn't very careful about transplanting them. I didn't have much space so they had to enjoy little room. Fortunately they didn't prove to be good guys. It took them 3 years (longer than for P.vulgaris) to reach flowering size, but now I have them flowering freely. My experience with the yellow ssp of P.alpina is the same as yours: a lot of fresh seed, erratic germination, dead young plants after transplanting

[Susan Band]

Strange how folks have trouble with P. alpina ssp apifolia. It is one of the longest lived pulsatillas here, plants surviving 30 years or more, since it was called P. sulphurea Eventually reaching a huge size and flowering reliably on mum's open day every year. Perhaps they like our cool summer.
Last year I saved some seed but left it lying around until the spring and then I got round to sowing it and all came up and were transplanted into plugs. They don't make very good selling plants as in the first year they only put up one large true leaf.
One plant was once dug from the garden (probabally close to flowering) and transfered into a washing up basin to be used in a display, it lasted in that bowl for 3-4 years before getting too tried to be used anymore and was given away. Lots of the roots left in the ground produced young plants and were then transfered no problem.
Oleg if you are over here again remind me and I will look for some plug plants 
Susan

[Darren]

Strange how folks have trouble with P. alpina ssp apifolia. It is one of the longest lived pulsatillas here, plants surviving 30 years or more, since it was called P. sulphurea Eventually reaching a huge size and flowering reliably on mum's open day every year. Perhaps they like our cool summer.
Last year I saved some seed but left it lying around until the spring and then I got round to sowing it and all came up and were transplanted into plugs. They don't make very good selling plants as in the first year they only put up one large true leaf.
One plant was once dug from the garden (probabally close to flowering) and transfered into a washing up basin to be used in a display, it lasted in that bowl for 3-4 years before getting too tried to be used anymore and was given away. Lots of the roots left in the ground produced young plants and were then transfered no problem.
Oleg if you are over here again remind me and I will look for some plug plants 


Susan

I recall seeing one in the Barr's garden in Penrith which was pretty much as you describe - very big. It actually looked like a peony from a distance.

A friend of ours once complained he could not obtain plants of this at all, only a few weeks after he had overlooked them when I had some young ones for sale - as you said,  they don't look like much in year one.

[KenC]

I have grown the same plant as Jozef for more than 10 years now and also from Halda seed listed as P. jarmilae.  Only one seed germinated and that one plant has spread only by runners, never producing viable seed.  I am very thankful for the comments by Susann as I have never found any information about this unique plant that I should now call P. kostyczewii (but never be able to pronounce).  It is an aggressive spreader but not easy to propagate because the rhizomes are fairly deep and brittle, with very little root material.  I tried to post a photo of the root system but it keeps being rejected as wrong type of file.  I will keep trying but for now another photo of this plant in the landscape can be seen in class 3 of the 2012 AGS online show.

Edit by maggi to add Ken's photos- I hope!