Calochortus at Salt Point State Park
Jane McGary (Wed, 11 May 2011 18:05:25 PDT)

Calochortus tolmiei grows in both northern California and southern
Oregon and experiences pretty cold temperatures in nature. I've grown
it for many years from seed I collected in the Siskiyous. It's
usually the very first Calochortus to flower in my collection, but
this year several others are about as far along in bud. I wonder if a
period of prolonged storage out of the ground last summer affected
them in this way. I was afraid none of them would bloom this year but
all of a sudden I see flowering stalks -- and at last, no rabbits are
here to eat them!

This species produces a fair number of offsets, too, and it flowers
relatively soon from seed (about four years), so it should be a good
one for many people to try. It is not available commercially as a
bulb, probably because it wasn't grown by the Dutch as a cutflower,
as C. venustus and some others have been.

Jane McGary
Portland, Oregon, USA

At 01:54 PM 5/11/2011, you wrote: