Favorite Yellow Flowered Bulbs--TOW
Mary Sue Ittner (Thu, 22 Jan 2004 20:46:11 PST)

Dear All,

No one has nominated Romulea as one of their favorite yellow flowered
bulbs. I said I'd have trouble just picking five and hoped people would
pick some of my other favorites that didn't make my list and many have been
chosen. But since Romulea has not been mentioned yet I'd just like to add a
plug for them. I grow quite a few with more getting closer to the blooming
stage. R. citrina, R. diversiformis, and R. flava have been pictured on
the wiki in the past and some of these flowers are quite charming. I have
just added pictures of two more. One is Romulea tortuosa. This one can have
wonderful black markings (which might make Jennifer view it with more
interest), but the one the came with my Jim Robinett bulbs is the one that
used to be called ssp. aurea which is unmarked. This bulb is fragrant,
rather like some of the Narcissus and I am not especially fond of that
fragrance. Alas mine does not have spiral leaves like some found in the
wild. In spite of those reservations I am fond of this species and
appreciate any flower that blooms in December and January each year. It
also has a really interesting looking corm. I need to photograph that when
it is dormant. I'd like to see more corm pictures on the wiki, especially
since often that is an important feature in identification.

The second one I added is Romulea luteoflora which opened yesterday
blooming for the first time from Silverhill Seed just in time for our
yellow flowered theme. I think it is smashing! It is a buttercup yellow
with black markings in the center and interesting coloring on the back of
the petals.

http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

I have gotten some Mediterranean Romuleas from Jane McGary the past couple
of years and like those as well. They aren't yellow however. One I got from
her this year is also blooming right now, Romulea bulbocodium Zahnii. I
searched and can't find that as a subspecies name anywhere although I see
that it is sold by that name by some. Regardless, it is a very nice plant
too and I have added it to the European and Med. Romulea page:
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…
20Romuleas

I hope that wraps. The title is a bit long. Unfortunately now that we have
made subdirectories on the wiki for a lot of genera we had many photos for
the urls for a lot of pictures are not going to wrap since they are much
longer.

You can always access both Romulea pages from:
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

Mary Sue