Scilla changes/Prospero autumnale
Jane McGary (Mon, 13 Aug 2012 18:03:51 PDT)

From several points of view other than DNA studies, the genus
Prospero seems to make a lot of sense. I think I'm growing all
species in it, and they do have a lot in common, including their fall
flowering. I don't think I have any photos of P. autumnale (which
indeed seems like it should be autumnalis!) that would be good for
the wiki. It's one of those very slender, small-flowered plants that
are hard to photograph. The best photo I have is a colony growing in
roadside gravel (it's probably a "pioneer plant"). If I see some
looking good this month I'll try again here.

Very good to hear that the other splits of Scilla are apparently not
widely accepted. I hate making those metal labels. Not going to do it
just to neuter Prospero.

Mary SUe wrote, "Also in that post from Julian he wrote: "no evidence
exists to

I had been under the impression that Leopoldia was long since sunk in
Muscari (Leopoldias are the "tassel hyacinths" such as M. comosum),
and that the former monotypic Pseudomuscari chalusicum is now the
bizarrely named Muscari pseudomuscari. Whatever you call the latter,
it is a real gem -- lovely light blue flowers of good substance, and
a bulb that almost never offsets, but it's easy to raise from seed.

Paige mentioned Fessia (Scilla) gorganica. Rare in cultivation, it
flowered for me for the first time last winter. Its more robust
congeners are F. (S) greilhuberi, which is a good garden plant here,
and F. (S) hohenackeri, which seems somewhat less enthusiastic. These
are leafy plants with large mid-blue flowers that have attractive
exserted stamens. S. greilhuberi even made it into the lawn here,
among some random bulbs rescued from the bulb frame plunge material,
and it seems quite happy in short turf.

Jane McGary
Portland, Oregon, USA