Calochortus at Salt Point State Park

Jane McGary janemcgary@earthlink.net
Wed, 11 May 2011 18:05:25 PDT
Calochortus tolmiei grows in both northern California and southern 
Oregon and experiences pretty cold temperatures in nature. I've grown 
it for many years from seed I collected in the Siskiyous. It's 
usually the very first Calochortus to flower in my collection, but 
this year several others are about as far along in bud. I wonder if a 
period of prolonged storage out of the ground last summer affected 
them in this way. I was afraid none of them would bloom this year but 
all of a sudden I see flowering stalks -- and at last, no rabbits are 
here to eat them!

This species produces a fair number of offsets, too, and it flowers 
relatively soon from seed (about four years), so it should be a good 
one for many people to try. It is not available commercially as a 
bulb, probably because it wasn't grown by the Dutch as a cutflower, 
as C. venustus and some others have been.

Jane McGary
Portland, Oregon, USA

At 01:54 PM 5/11/2011, you wrote:
>  Hi Bob:
>
>Beautiful plant and images.
>
>Does anyone have any idea what evolutionary function (if any) the 'hairs' on
>the leaves serve?
>
>We haven't tried this species but we have tried other commercially available
>Calochortus at Chicago Botanic Garden with disappointing results.


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