Fritillaria flowering
Jane McGary (Mon, 15 Sep 2003 09:48:55 PDT)

Dirk wrote, referring to "The Gardener's Guide to Growing Fritillarias" by
Kevin Pratt,

Another error.

As I understand it, F. "roderickii" is not identical with F. "grayana" --
the former is smaller and less robust in growth than the latter, which I
(and some others) find to be the easiest form of F. biflora to grow. David
King's account in "Bulbs of North America" says F. "roderickii" does not
exceed 15 cm (6 inches) and has flowers of "a unique brown color with pale
cream tepal tips." The clone 'Martha Roderick' is a selection of
"roderickii" made in England. The name "F. roderickii," though not accepted
in the "Jepson Manual" (the authoritative California flora), is still in
use largely for political reasons, since its restricted population is on
the state endangered species list and thus provides leverage for
preservation of its habitat. (This is a useful conservation strategy in the
USA.)

F. purdyi's flowers look a lot like those of F. biflora and, at least here,
they flower about the same time (late in the frit season), but I don't know
what the possibility of their hybridizing is (i.e., I don't know their
chromosome counts).

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon