colchicum byzantinum & friends
Jane McGary (Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:22:29 PDT)

It has been mentioned that the name Colchicum parnassicum is
misapplied in cultivation to
C. laetum hort. However, the Archibalds offer seed of a documented
collection of C. parnassicum, which I am growing though it is not
mature enough to flower yet, so in spite of being misapplied in
gardens it is apparently a valid name -- at least at some point in
the unsatisfactory nomenclature of this genus.

I just inventoried my bulbs and find I have about 120 accessions of
Colchicum, but these include some hybrids and some as yet
unidentified ones grown from wild-collected seed, as well as multiple
wild sources for the same species, so in this collection there are
probably about 70 actual distinct species as now recognized, not
counting the named horticultural selections. If I had to pick just
two for a desert-island garden, I think the big one would be C.
speciosum 'Album' and the small one C. cupanii ssp. bertolonii.

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon, USA