Ipheion 'Rolf Fiedler'
Mary Sue Ittner (Mon, 01 Dec 2003 10:14:15 PST)

Dear All,

We discussed this plant in January 2003. Anyone interested can read the
posts in the archives.
These are some of the edited ones so look for Ipheion in a couple of places:
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbslist/old.php/…

It appears that part of the problem with this one has to do with the name
Ravenna and the difficulty in validating his work. There are some
interesting posts about that as well in the those archives.

Here is what Alberto wrote then:
"‘Rolf Fiedler’ is a true species and (face red) I was supposed to be
publishing it as such long ago. In my experience (and that of many others)
it was battered by winter cold while uniflorum looked indifferent to any
amount of cold, snow and frost. I have seen in John’s site that he grows a
magnificent clump of it in the open so ‘Rolf Fiedler’ may not be so tender
as previously thought if given ideal conditions (in other words with sharp
drainage instead of uniformly moist). Tristagma peregrinans is a Ravenna’s
species that we could not find so far. He does not recognize Ipheion as a
genus simply because if all were Tristagmas the botanical names should bear
his name attached. If this is botanical science…!! From the illustration in
Plant Life it can be seen that T. peregrinans share with ‘Rolf Fiedler’
only two features, blue flowers and the production of offsets at a
distance from the mother bulb at the tip of long runners. The leaves and
bulb shape (a long teardrop) have nothing in common with Rolf Fiedler’."

There is also an interesting article in the 1986 Herbertia Alberto wrote:
"Notes on the Cultivation of South American Bulbous plants". He does not as
he says in this article fuel the taxonomical controversy about Ipheion,
Nothoscordum and Tristagma. He just discusses habitats and cultivation.

I think Lee was wondering whether Dirk Wallace had uncovered something new.
I think we gardeners like to wait to change our plant tags until there is
some kind of consensus. There does seem to be more agreement about placing
the yellow Ipheions (some of my favorite winter flowering bulbs thanks to
the generosity of Bill Dijk) in Nothoscordum so that is how I have labeled
them.

We are happy to have John MacGregor join our list as it sounds like he will
be able to provide us with a lot of helpful information.

Mary Sue

PBS List Administrator, Wiki Worker, TOW Coordinator (Whew!)