Fragrance in Colchicums
totototo@telus.net (Sat, 27 Sep 2008 12:12:51 PDT)
On 26 Sep 08, at 20:43, Tom Mitchell wrote:
Does anyone know of a reference work on Colchicum more recent (and better
illustrated) than E.A. Bowles' book form the fifties? I'd love to try and
identify what I've got...
Rix & Phillips, "The Bulb Book", 1981
Mathew, "The Smaller Bulbs", 1987
Grey-Wilson & Mathew, "Bulbs; The bulbous plants of Europe and their allies",
1981
Synge, "Collins Guide to Bulbs", 1971
However, as with some other groups of plants, the cultivar names in Colchicum
seem to be irremediably scrambled, and have been for a long time, so there's no
guarantee that even fairly authoritative books like these have it right.
It might be best to identify not as "this bulb is such-and-such cultivar" but,
rather, "this bulb matches thus-and-so in book-X, something else in book Y,
etc."
Good luck.
PS: Please try to take photographs that make clear the distinctive features of
each of the forms you have and post them to the PBS Wiki with such
identifications as you are able to pin down. A 17% neutral gray card may be
helpful in compensating for color balance issues.
--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate
on beautiful Vancouver Island