Pulsatilla 2013

[Natalia]

Susann, I understand, my English is far from perfect. But also for you - English too not native?
Therefore as you told - so I understood
Now concerning  seeds P.cernua - seeds are received from the nature, but it is not my collecting. Plants are grown up long ago, records remained only in a short form. I don't exclude hybridization, of course, hybrids are natural and to the wild nature - yours history with P.daurica - confirmation to it. : )

[Olga Bondareva]

I wanted to know your opinion on the plant showed on the picture.

As for me I am not 100% sure it is hybrid. Yes it is white-haired and flowers are more like P. patens. Leaves are vernalis's or very close to it. But think it is hybrid, yes.

Pulsatilla hallerii ssp. taurica in it's natural habit a week ago. No doubts. 

[Great Moravian]

The other day I got an email about rental cars saying "it is down to automatic". I had no idea if it ment it was only to be found with automatic, or only with manual gear. Very frustrating.

Standard phrases are difficult to be understood in other languages too. You may guess
the meaning of the following common Czech one.
Je u nás pečený vařený.
Verbatim translation is as follows.
He is at us roasted boiled.

I am waiting for beautiful pictures from all of you that is already experiencing spring. P halleri for example should be in flower in many places in souther Europe ( Great Britain) right now?

We obtained 15-20 cm of devastating wet snow yesterday.

[Susann]

]He is at us roasted boiled.

Oh, Josef. Very difficult. My guess would be that this person had done something bad and you are now angry with him, or perhaps totally opposite; he is visiting you and having a great time? Please, now that you have had us guessing, don´t forget to tell us the correct meaning. Perhaps Olga and Natalia that speaks Russian might have a clue?

As for me I am not 100% sure it is hybrid. Yes it is white-haired and flowers are more like P. patens. Leaves are vernalis's or very close to it. But think it is hybrid, yes.

Difficult. I do not know what to think. You are right, the leaves reminds of "short" vernalis leaves, but also patens can show leaves more or less like that I believe? I think right now the strongest clue is by Darren who observed that  the leaves seemed to have over-wintered. Why can not plants in nature come with very informative labels? But perhaps it would be too boring...

Pulsatilla hallerii ssp. taurica in it's natural habit a week ago. No doubts. 

I will not argue with you on this one. Beautiful picture of a superhairy beauty. Last winter I had a bud of P halleri ssp taurica overwintering, big and nice. Every time the snow melted it proudly stretched towards sun, well protected in its hairy blanket. When snow came back it just showed patience and waited a little more. It was in full bloom in early March. The other buds of the plant came soon after. This year, it is as at Josef´s, still snowing and around -14 - - 18 at night. No Pulsatillas in sight.
 

my English is far from perfect.

Please, don´t worry Natalia;  in no way did I want to pick on your English. We are both struggling with it. I just thought that you slightly might had misunderstod my question.

[Maggi Young]

Standard phrases are difficult to be understood in other languages too. You may guess
the meaning of the following common Czech one.
Je u nás pečený vařený.
Verbatim translation is as follows.
He is at us roasted boiled.

Is dinner ready?

[David Nicholson]

Dunno, I've had mine

[Susann]

Here is the heroic bud of last winter

Pulsatilla halleri ssp taurica

[Tim Ingram]

This plant in our garden was grown from seed supposedly of the famous 'Budapest', which is a form of grandis(?). One or two seedlings did approach the 'blue' of 'Budapest', but nothing like the original. Is the colour of 'Budapest' actually seen in the wild I wonder? It is extraordinarily beautiful. After the discussion here I also wonder how true a species this is, or if it's likely to be a garden hybrid.

Whichever, it is a wonderful plant and we have used this picture on the front of a leaflet to publicise our AGS Groups in Kent - I can think of few alpines which would do this better!

[ranunculus]

It's certainly stunning, Tim ... and a worthy headline act for any alpine event.

[Susann]

Dear Tim!

Now I think I am making you and many persons disappointed. But some years ago there was an article in the SRGC journal telling the sad story about the legendary `Budapest´. It was a P halleri that was found outside of Budapest, and it has beautiful blue flowers. It was showed somewhere in Great Britain, I do not remember where. It won a medal of merit, do not ask me which one. Unfortunally, according the article, it died soon after being showed, without setting any seeds.

This makes it impossible that there are any `Budapest´ seedlings or strain around.  As the article said, there might be other Pulsatilla halleri in blue form found in Hungary in the trade, but they can not be called  ´Budapest´. As I am sure you all know, when a cultivar name is given to a plant, it can not be used for a similar one.

Here in Sweden I have seen many labels with the name  `Budapest`, but is has this far never belonged to a blue P halleri, but to the very beautiful northamerican blue P patens or hybrids with ( at least for me) impossible parentage to figure out.

Now, I would be more than happy if someone tells me that the article -and me- are wrong!

[Maggi Young]

The following articles about P. 'Budapest' are all available online from this web page :
http://www.srgc.net/site/index.php/extensions/journal

Pulsatilla   'Budapest' : 11/98B, 123

Pulsatilla grandis ‘Budapest Blue’ : 24/124C, 125C, 140, 155*

Pulsatilla ‘Budapest Var.’ : 24/126C, 155


This plant has been the subject of much discussion over the years- in the pages of Alpine L, for example and in this Irish AGS group document :
www.alpinegarden-ulster.org.uk/POM/Pulsatilla%20Budapest.doc
..and in the NARGS forum, between some famili#ar names here :
http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?topic=624.msg7528#msg7528

[Maggi Young]

Here are the "segments" of Mike Stone's article  from the Rock Garden January 1995

First, the text, then, in two parts to enable posting here, the photos.

 PBudapest95.pdf (195.44 kB - downloaded 662 times.)  the text

 BudePagepic1.pdf (97.86 kB - downloaded 108 times.)

 budapestpix2and3pdf.pdf (156.32 kB - downloaded 105 times.)

[Olga Bondareva]

Very interesting discussion of P. 'Budapest'! Thank you Maggy for the text and images!

Two years ago I shoot a blue Pulsatilla in ZZ's garden. There were many bluming Pulsatillas but that one was really outstandind, extraordinary. We discussed it but my stupid memory lost all information. The word 'Budapest' was pronounced as I remember. And when I look at Maggi's picts I see it is very close to them. May be ZZ could tell us about this plant?

[ranunculus]

This lovely pulsatilla was exhibited by Geoff Rollinson at the AGS East Lancashire Show in March 2010 with the label; 'Pulsatilla grandis Budapest Strain.
Just to add to the confusion! 

[Tim Ingram]

Susann must be right if there was originally only one plant labelled 'Budapest', in theory this could only be perpetuated vegetatively. Presumably this wonderful colour is so special that gardeners have kept using the same name for plants from various sources. But it still begs the question whether other wild plants in the same region are likely to have this same colour - then it might be fair to carry over the same name to them? The original was an amazing blue which doesn't seem to be quite there in many plants that are shown, even though they are very beautiful in their own right. Perhaps a pulsatilla breeding programme should be in the offing??