Calochortus
Mary Sue Ittner (Sun, 19 Jun 2005 10:17:26 PDT)

Dear All,

Since my part of Northern California has been experiencing winter lately
(rain, high temperatures in the 50ties) I've had some time to update the
Calochortus wiki page and add a lot of new images and text. I am a bit
worried about what the rain will do to my Calochortus since I've read not
to water them after they start blooming and most have bloomed or were
blooming. We'll see.

On our trip to central California in April we encountered a number of
Calochortus in the wild. In Kern County we saw Calochortus amoenus (a
pretty pink globe kind) growing not far from the road on a grassy bank. It
is one of my favorites so that was a thrill. So I've added pictures of it.

We also stopped when we saw what looked like Calochortus right alongside
the road, so close in fact that cars had wiped out a few when they pulled
over. We puzzled over them and I immediately remembered reading in Mariposa
(the Calochortus newsletter now edited by Diana Chapman) about what Jim and
Georgie Robinett called the Calochortus luteus-superbus complex. C. luteus
is usually yellow with a lunate (crescent-shaped) nectary and C. superbus
white or yellow but also other colors with the gland described as an
inverted v. The Robinetts however described 4 other possibilities for that
gland they and others had found in the wild. So the plants we saw are
probably some of these mixed types that don't fall neatly in a category. We
also saw one near Lake Isabella that we thought might have been C. venustus
but I'm now thinking could fit the C. superbus type with one of those other
gland shapes. I included a number of the pictures since there was such a
variation and to remind everyone that when you look at a picture of a
species in a book and think your plant isn't exactly like it so must be
something else that there is great variety in nature and not all the plants
of a species are going to resemble one picture. I've put all these under
superbus, but welcome the opinions of the Calochortus experts in the group
about what they are.

I also added some pictures of some Calochortus luteus we saw near Merced
when we were searching for the vernal pools near where they were planning
to build the new University of California. We drove down this country road,
fenced on either side and saw mostly drying grasses, but eventually some
blooming Calochortus luteus, Brodiaea californica var. leptandra and
Triteleia hyacinthina all in the same spot.

I've also replaced some old pictures with ones I liked better and added a
few new types: better albus picture, new argillosus Bay picture, new
southern form of argillosus picture, additional garden superbus pictures,
better splendens, side view of C. venustus that was especially nice I
thought this spring, and a better white vestae. Blooming for the first time
for me this year and perhaps the last since it isn't supposed to like my
wetter climate and we've had all this late rain, was C. simulans which
looks a bit like C. catalinae from a distance which is apparently how it
got its name. And I've added more text about some of these wonderful
plants. I mentioned in a recent post how many different insects since
attracted to Calochortus. Sometimes you see more than one kind wallowing
around in the flowers at the same time. I captured a few of these in some
of those pictures.

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

Mary Sue