Bulbs that flower without leaves--TOW
Jane McGary (Sun, 03 Aug 2003 10:20:08 PDT)

There are a few terms that refer to the presence of leaves at flowering
time, and these are useful to know:

anthesis: flowering, the time of flowering (e.g. "leaves present at anthesis")
precocious: of flowers that appear before the leaves develop (the epithet
is praecox)
synanthous: of leaves that appear with the flowers
hysteranthous: of leaves that develop after the flowers

I am not an "expert," but I can mention that there are quite a few Crocus
species that flower before the leaves are fully developed, and some before
the leaves can be seen above ground. In fact, the degree of development of
the leaf at anthesis is one trait by which the species are identified.
Brian Mathew considers the leaves "synanthous" if even the tips are visible
at flowering. He also uses the term "sub-hysteranthous," which I assume
means leaves barely visible. The most obvious hysteranthous species is
Crocus nudiflorus; also C. medius int he same section. C. scharojanii is
said to be hysteranthous, a fact which can be confirmed by someone from the
very small group (not including me) who have managed to flower it. C.
kotschyanus and C. vallicola flower without their leaves up. The
dry-growing crocuses of section Crocus (the saffron group) are mostly
hysteranthous or nearly so. Some autumn-flowering members of section
Reticulati are: C. cancellatus, C. hermoneus. The big pattern here is that
fall-blooming species tend to flower before the leaves develop, though
there are some fall-bloomers (C. cartwrightianus and its descendant, C.
sativus or saffron, for example; or C. ochroleucus) that have visible
leaves at flowering.

I have a very curious Ornithogalum that covers all the bets: O. fimbriatum
bears flowers on very short stems, right on the ground, in late winter;
then the leaves wither; and then, in late spring, it send up a taller
flowering stalk without the leaves present. Possibly this is in response to
more moisture than it is accustomed to in the wild?

Judy Glattstein wrote that only Colchicum luteum flowers with leaves
present, but in fact there are some Colchicum species that have leaves
visible at flowering; C. doerfleri comes to mind, and I seem to recall that
C. kesselringii has visible leaves at its late winter flowering period.
There are a number of spring-blooming colchicums, mostly quite small so not
familiar in gardens. I wish the botanists would settle down and describe
the genus Colchicum thoroughly so we amateurs can sort out what we are
growing; a monograph has been proposed by Christopher Brickell, and Dr.
Perssoon (sp.?) in Sweden has named many new species in recent years.

Several species of Sternbergia flower in the nude, e.g. S. colchiciflora.
And one of them never flowers at all, as far as I can tell: S. candida, and
if you have flowered it, I wish you would tell me what you did to it,
because I have been growing it for many years with never a bloom.

Best regards,
Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon