Fritillaria flowering

flower now, at the start of the season. This species originally came to me
as seed from Jim and Georgie Robinett, and has flowered the last couple of
seasons at this time of year (for us it is late Winter/early Spring).

Could it be that our edaphic conditions are more suitable (or should I say
softer) for them to come up earlier than in the wild? With Fritillaria the
shoot emerges with the flowers onboard, so it would seem the earlier they
come up the earlier they flower. Does this sound right?

It makes sense. Apparently it doesn't hurt these California Fritillaria
species to grow and flower earlier than they would in nature as long as
they don't get caught by a severe frost in the process. Most of the F.
eastwoodiae that I am growing came originally from probably the same
Robinett collection as Dirk's did, although I also have another
"population" from Ron Ratko's collection about 10 years later.

However, flowering doesn't succeed emergence at the same rate in every
species. For example, F. viridea and F. recurva emerge here about the same
time and grow at the same pace, but the former opens its blooms several
weeks before the latter. F. viridea has small green (fly-pollinated?)
flowers and comes from farther south than the scarlet, bird-pollinated F.
recurva. Another one that flowers well after emergence is F. biflora
"grayana."

David King has an article in the new issue of the Fritillaria Group
newsletter about variation in the widespread F. affinis. He concentrates on
flower form. I am growing six groups of this species from different parts
of its range, and they flower at different times from early February (large
yellow-green from California) to early May (medium-sized conical form from
the Oregon Cascades). Forms from coastal California, Vancouver Island, an
unidentified location, and the Siskiyous fall in between. These plants are
grown here in identical conditions, yet they are obviously responding to
some genetic variation in addition to temperature, moisture, day length,
etc. There is, however, the point that these forms of F. affinis are
different enough among themselves that, were they growing in the eastern
Mediterranean region, they might be called different species.

I wonder if some species, or groups (complexes?) of species, are more
sensitive to environmental "triggers" to growth than others are. It would
be interesting to compile information on flowering season in this genus.
Perhaps the AGS Fritillaria Group is already doing this, does anyone know?
I was just looking at their recent newsletter and wishing they had a
website like the PBS wiki so we could look at photos of what are agreed to
be representative plants of frit species, since up-to-date documentation is
at present scattered in journals not available to most people outside the
UK. (If there is one editorial project I'd gladly do for free, it would be
helping get Martyn Rix's eternally forthcoming monograph of the genus into
print!)

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon