Colchicum cilicicum blooming and more on new blog post
Kathy Purdy (Tue, 06 Oct 2015 14:49:15 PDT)

Thank you for that clarification, Jim. What I would really like to know is,
what source is considered authoritative for identifying colchicums? When I
first became interested in them, I was told that Crocus & Colchicum by E.A.
Bowles (what I believe Jim is referring to as Bowles' handbook) was the
definitive authority. Is that still the case? Just recently (9/21) Jim
referred to the colchicaceae.e-monocot.org website, and Travis referenced
the European Garden Flora. Today both Jim and Travis referred to the Plant
List. Are any (or all) of these considered more authoritative than Bowles?
And having just learned it's important to pay attention to the author of a
botanical name, I'm wondering what other land mines to watch out for when
reading more scholarly works.

On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 4:54 PM, Jim McKenney <jamesamckenney@verizon.net>
wrote:

When I read Travis' post and Jane's response to that post this morning, I
had to take the dog out for a walk. It was just too much for me to swallow
before breakfast.
About Colchicum cilicicum and C. bivonae: the Colchicum bivonae listed on
The Plant List as a synonym of Colchicum cilicicum is not the C. bivonae to
which cultivars such as 'Apollo' and 'Vesta' are attributed. We're
gardeners here, not (most of us anyway) botanists, and we accept the (bad)
habit of citing botanical names without their authors. However, that can
lead to confusion, and it does most certainly in this thread. The Colchicum
bivonae which is a synonym of C. cilicicum is C. bivonae Ten.; the
Colchicum bivonae to which 'Apollo' and 'Vesta' are attributed is C.
bivonae Guss., and it is a "good ***" species in the Kew List system.

The plant commonly cultivated as Colchicum cilicicum, which may or may not
be the real thing, is most definitely not the same as what most of us who
grow it know as C.bivonae.
The catalog description of 'Lilac Wonder' cited by Jane was probably
written sixty or seventy years after the cultivar 'Lilac Wonder' was
released to the public. The two pre-World War II sources I'm most familiar
with, the account in Bowles' Handbook (I'm not sure when this was last
updated or when the section on Colchicum was actually published) and the
account in Gartenschoenheit of October 1938, do not place 'Lilac Wonder'
among the tessellated varieties. There is no hint of tessellation in the
image of 'Lilac Wonder' in Esther Bartning's group watercolor of colchicums
dated 1937; in the text written by Karl Foerster which accompanied the
publication of that plate in 1938, Foerster does not mention tessellation,
simply describing 'Lilac Wonder' as "delicate lilac, unique"
(zartfliederfarben, einzigartig). And he places it among the sorts
flowering in early autumn, not among the late flowering ones. 'Lilac
Wonder' was one of the first colchicums I obtained from the old firm Peter
de Jager about fifty years ago. And replacements were obtained on several
other occasions over the years. All of those were the same, and none showed
tessellation. A more recent acquisition two years ago brought something
similar, but in small ways different. I have no idea what this is.
Jim McKenneyMontgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where
Titanotrichum oldhamii is blooming -thanks Chris!

To: pbs@lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Monday, October 5, 2015 11:28 PM
Subject: Re: [pbs] Colchicum cilicicum blooming and more on new blog post

Thank you Jane, very informative!

I'll add these bits:

The Plant List (via Kew) lists C. giganteum and bornmuelleri as synonyms
of C. speciosum. [1]

The Plant List considers C. bivonae a synonym of C. cilicicum via Kew. [2]

The book 'Flowers for Northern Gardens' by Leon C. Snyder wrote that C.
'Lilac Wonder' is a hybrid of C. autumnale and C. speciosum. Not sure where
they sourced that info. [3] A google search found a few similar accounts as
those species being the parents. I've not found data listing the original
hybridizer, only that it was for sale at or before 1926. Does anyone have
any old catalogs?

I'm not sure where I read that 'Lilac Wonder' was a hybrid of giganteum
and bornmuelleri, or if the two were just "suspected" as being the parents.
Being that both are considered speciosum variants, it's not COMPLETELY
wrong...

[1] http://theplantlist.org/tpl1.1/record/…

[2] http://theplantlist.org/tpl1.1/record/…

[3]
https://books.google.com/books/…

Travis Owen
Rogue River, OR

amateuranthecologist.blogspot.com
http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/

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--
Kathy Purdy
2015 Winner of the Garden Writers Association
Silver Award of Achievement for Blog Writing
http://www.coldclimategardening.com/