West Coast Erythroniums

Pacific Rim paige@hillkeep.ca
Mon, 12 Apr 2010 19:59:20 PDT
John Grimshaw asked:

> Has anyone ever come across a hybrid between Erythronium hendersonii and
> E. revolutum?

I don't think I have. But I have wondered about such a cross, because in my
garden their periods of bloom overlap. E. oregonum and E. tuolumnense might
also be candidates for crossing here, if the pollinators felt pumped.

E. hendersonii blooms earliest. On its heels comes tuolumnense. Then both
revolutum and oregonum bud up, but revolutum opens first. All four are in
bloom here now. Perhaps like many of you, I have used a digital camera to 
record what happens in my garden. This makes phenology, sequences, easy to 
trace from year to year.

Spp from warmer climes bloom here earliest -- except for californicum and 
its hybrid, 'White Beauty.'  Both are still in bud.

In the wild, I should think that several species of Erythronium might cross. 
I say this both on acct of their ranges and because I have received seeds 
from reputable collectors that turned out, after the years to bloom, to be 
of more than one species. Or their crosses. But they did appear to be 
species. And having been in the Siskiyou Range when plants were blooming, I 
know that species can be only a couple of hundred feet apart, if that, 
whether up or sideways.

The same goes for Iris spp. Any fans of Pacific Coast Iris out there?

Some cameras now record not just time and date, but GPS data. Dare I hope 
that temperature and various measures of light might be wrapped into the 
next round?

And then one detects the structure of the soil and its pH, and on and on. 
Excellent, as long as we don't have to write it down while hiking, but can 
simply analyze later, with a precision lost to our wheezing scribbles.

Paige Woodward


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