Pulsatilla 2013

[Maggi Young]

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 outstanding, 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?

 I have heard from ZZ, who says :

"Killing Pulsatilla

   To kill some Pasque flowers needs a skill. I did it with this fantastic blue variety (what a shame!) with the help of watering and fertilizing. Too good life is always a danger. I obtained this plant from some lovely friend of mine (which one? I have a lot of them, but Irish Master Harold McBride is my choice) and I thought that I was the king of the blues of Pulsatilla. 3 years old plant collapsed suddenly after rich heavenly light blue blooming. It was kind of a stroke (steaming wet soil in hot spring).
   I do believe that this queen of Pasque flowers is steppe plant, Pulsatilla grandis, which one blessed female gardener found at some limestone hills north of Buda or Pešt = Budapešt in Hungary. We know striking dwarf white varieties from Styria (Austria), lilac blooming forms from Moravia and rare rose-pink forms from Slovakia. Fritz Kummert just now prepares an article about this species. That killing-heart blue form is strictly Hungarian. Can somebody give me my second chance?"
ZZ.

[Susann]

Thank you Maggi for giving us links to all the interesting articles ans pictures! It was the article of 1995 I was referring to. Perhaps 1995 is not as "a few years ago" as I will think of it? One of my daughters has just been visiting for some days and she keeps telling me I am getting old!? Old, me? I just happen to remember when kiwi and yoghurt was introduced to Sweden, and...

The word 'Budapest' was pronounced as I remember.

Here as photo, actually of the same plant as Olga has photographed. In this picture it has just passed its peak and some flowers begin to be overbloomed.

Please not that there are still no leaves emerging. P halleri is said to have leaves and flowers in the same time, and in my garden it is the way they grow. On the other hand, the norhtamerican P patens, with itīs beautiful blue color and colorless pistills, flowers without showing the leaves.

[Susann]

...and I pressed the "post" without adding the photo...


I also wanted to write  "please, note that there are still no leaves emerging ".

[Susann]

Ok, here comes the rest of what I was thinking of writing in the first post; ZZ told me too it was a `Budapestī. But I always get a little suspicious when there are no leaves around. Still, it was a beautiful plant, and just as Maggi quoted, he wrote to me later that year that he had killed the plant by giving it fertilizer. It is very sad, but in the same time gives me some courage. Even people with long experience can do horrible mistakes! If I tell you just some of my gardening mistakes you will probably laugh for a week.

The biggest mistake regarding Pulsatillas was some winters ago. I had fourteen beautiful big plants, full of flower buds, of P vernalis in open soil. I wanted to give them a good start before potting them for sale. I had placed a big glass over them to protect them from bare frost as our winters are so strange with snow and rain, and bare frost with -20 or more, back and forth. Anyway, I went to listen to a talk and the man giving it mentioned that if you are protecting something, please check it in the end of winter so it has not gotten too dry under the glass. I got worried and dug the snow away and had a look. No problem, everything was fine. But, the glass had pressed the buds down a little so I put a brick under the glassīs corners and dugged the snow back. As it happened, spring arrived just three or four days later with a quick thaw. I decided to take the glass away as I was afraid it would get the nice plants burnt if the snow melted completely. When I lifted the glass I found a big disaster. A mouse had in these few days found his way under the glass and had had a real party! He had carefully gnawed all the leavesīs steams away and eaten all the buds. The leaves were laying in neat circles around the empty and wounded root necks. All over the place were small green poops. I really hope his small belly hurt a lot. But this story has a good ending, contrary to the story of the showing of the `Budapestī. All the plants survived! I was convinced the root necks were hurt too badly. But the next season they all flowered as nothing had happened.

[Great Moravian]

According to Flora Europaea and Botany.cz
1 basal leaves palmately divided ... patens
1 basal leaves pinnately divided
 2 with 7-9 primary segments, becoming glabrous 
  3 leaves with flowers, >100 lobes ... vulgaris
  3 leaves after flowers, +-40 lobes ...grandis
 2 with 3-5 primary segments, persistently lanate
  4 plant <5 cm at anthesis, leaves 50-100 lobes
   5 primary segments often petiolate ... halleri subsp. rhodopea
   5 primary segments usually sessile ... halleri subsp. taurica
  4 plant >5 cm at anthesis, leaves <50 lobes
   6 primary segments +-5
    7 lamina 3-7 cm ... halleri subsp. halleri
    7 lamina 5-11 cm ...halleri subsp. styriaca
   6 primary segments +-3
    8 segments 12-25 mm broad ... slavica   
    8 segments 7-12 mm broad ... subslavica
If the plant was identified as halleri in Kew, its leaves are
certainly pinnately divided.
So you should check whether the lamina of basal leaves
is glabrous or lanate in summer. If glabrous, it is
grandis, if lanate, it is halleri, slavica or subslavica.
Nevertheless, the character of the plant suggests grandis.
I checked Hungarian images on the web. The flower colour of
Hungarian grandis is either greyish-mauve or bluish-violet
as in Moravia. The colour of hairs is irrelevant.
http://botany.cz/cs/pulsatilla-slavica/   
http://botany.cz/cs/pulsatilla-subslavica/

[Great Moravian]

http://botany.cz/cs/pulsatilla-hackelii/

[ruweiss]

My favourite Pulsatilla starts to flower in spite of this unusual sunless
and cold spring. The second picture is from last year, when the flowers
were more. I raised this plant about 12 years ago from wild seed, collected
in the Slovakian Tatra Mountains. It grows in the hottest and driest place
of my garden. The seed was labelled as P. halleri slavica, but I would be
grateful for the exact identification by the experts.

[ranunculus]

Magnificent, Rudi.

[Susann]

The seed was labelled as P. halleri slavica, but I would be
grateful for the exact identification by the experts.

I am far from an expert but I would trust your label. The plant looks to me as the one below, which is ( confirmed by an expert!) P halleri ssp slavica or subslavica.  I donīt remember which one, and as the leaves does not show it is to me impossible to say.  Ssp slavica has broadly divided leaves and ssp subslavica has finely divided leaves. Your plant has slightly more narrow petals than the plant below, but I think that is a normal variation. Letīs wait for Josef and hear his opinion.

P halleri ssp slavica or subslavica

[ruweiss]

Hello Susann and Cliff, many thanks for your help
and the friendly comment.

[Great Moravian]

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, donīt forget to tell us the correct meaning.

He is our daily visitor.

I am far from an expert but I would trust your label. The plant looks to me as the one below, which is ( confirmed by an expert!) P halleri ssp slavica or subslavica.  I donīt remember which one, and as the leaves does not show it is to me impossible to say.  Ssp slavica has broadly divided leaves and ssp subslavica has finely divided leaves. Your plant has slightly more narrow petals than the plant below, but I think that is a normal variation. Letīs wait for Josef and hear his opinion.

I guess slavica. But identifying photographs is not my hobby.

[ruweiss]

Thank you Josef.

[Susann]

He is our daily visitor.

OK, so at least I was right about the part that he is visiting you...not too bad.

Sun has arrived, melting the snow, and hopefully, in a week or so I can see how the earliest Pulsatillas are doing.

[greenspan]

puh ...i found this thread this afternoon at work and i knew, what i have to do this evening...reading all 14 pages (okay not all exactly ) and marvelling at the wonderful fotos (sometimes with suddenly beginning salivation ).

here is my Pulsatilla rubra, grown from seed which a friend collected in sierra nevada/spain (he couldn't remember for sure, maybe he collected in france). the digicam has problems to show the true color. if you stay in front of the plant, you would say the color is black. the fotos aren't current of course.





a few days ago the first Pulsatilla started here in our very delayed spring...Pulsatilla halleri ssp. taurica (got under this name)

[Armin]

Herzlich willkommen Greenspan,

your P. rubra are beautiful grown and your hairy P. halleri ssp. taurica is lovely, too.

My P. halleri ssp. rhodopaea is now more then 6 weeks in bud stage and just awaiting (as me) a bit warmer weather.

I learned recently the two subspecies just differ in the primary segment shape (sessile vs. often petiolate).
Would be interested to compare the leaves later.

P.S. Do you have a first name?