Ipheion sellowianum
Tony Avent (Sat, 14 Apr 2007 04:10:35 PDT)

Lee:

I'd be very interesting to see photos of the two different plants. My
plant as N. dialystemon came from Telos and my N. sellowianum came from
Seneca Hill. I'd be very interested to know if you find viable seed
set. Thanks.

Tony Avent
Plant Delights Nursery @
Juniper Level Botanic Garden
9241 Sauls Road
Raleigh, North Carolina 27603 USA
Minimum Winter Temps 0-5 F
Maximum Summer Temps 95-105F
USDA Hardiness Zone 7b
email tony@plantdelights.com
website http://www.plantdelights.com/
phone 919 772-4794
fax 919 772-4752
"I consider every plant hardy until I have killed it myself...at least three times" - Avent

Lee Poulsen wrote:

On Apr 13, 2007, at 12:01 PM, Tony Avent wrote:

We're quite a bit hotter
than you in summer and colder in winter, but Nothoscordum
sellowianum is
one of our favorite bulbs... We tried
crossing it with N. dialystemon both ways and got no seed set.

I believe what is in the trade under these two names is all the
same species.

Tony Avent
Plant Delights Nursery @

[Now that has got to be one of the funnest coincidences I've
experienced: I had just hit the reply button to Tony's email (above)
when the doorbell rang and there was FedEx with my plant order from
Tony! Talk about service...!]

[Okay, that was weird. While I typed the above sentence an email came
in from FedEx saying that they had delivered my package from Tony. It
was time-stamped at the time just after the driver drove away. I
didn't realize their little scanner/signature machines were linked
wirelessly all the way to generating an email, too. Neat world we
live in, at times.]

Anyway,
I used to think the two were the same species, and the flowers are
almost identical to me. But now that my pots have filled in
completely, the two look different. My N. dialystemon has leaves
that, while narrow, are twice as wide as those of my N. sellowianum.
They are also much flatter. The N. sellowianum leaves are almost
tubular. And looking at my pots full of leaves (flowering is over),
the sensation is kind of like looking at pots full of green
spaghettini noodles (N. sellowianum ) vs. pots full of green angel
hair pasta noodles (N. sellowianum). I can try to take a picture to
show the difference. My N. dialystemon came from Bill Dijk (as well
as from Mary Sue who I think got hers from Bill as well), while my N.
sellowianum came from Diana Chapman/Telos.

I think I've seen a few seed pods now and then in the past, although
rarely. I'll make an effort to check from now on.

--Lee Poulsen
Pasadena, California, USA, USDA Zone 10a

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