Fritillaria micrantha
Jane McGary (Wed, 25 Apr 2018 09:54:00 PDT)

Last week I posted a note about Fritillaria recurva and its relatives,
which form a distinct group of western North American species typified
by the widespread Fritillaria affinis. One I mentioned was Fritillaria
eastwoodiae, which looks like a miniature F. recurva on a tall scape.
Near that group of plants I have another cluster which I thought was
more F. eastwoodiae, the plants being indistinguishable, but they were
only in bud. I was wrong. Today the first flower on the second group
opened, and proved to be Fritillaria micrantha, which I'd never seen
before. It is native to the western lower elevations of the central
Sierra Nevada of California, including Yosemite National Park. Its
coloration outside (the lower surface of the tepals) is much like the
brown-green F. affinis, but inside it has a pretty pattern with zones of
bright yellow. The flower is about 2 cm in diameter and is open, not
tubular like F. recurva and eastwoodiae. (By the way, these plants do
have labels, which are probably buried by the gravel topdressing. They
are planted directly in a raised bed, not confined to pots.)

I'd have to search far back in my seedlists to find out how long ago I
sowed the seeds of these plants, but it was more than 6 years ago. I
wonder if it's just maturity that brought all of them (about 6
individuals) to flower this year, or if our unusually warm
December-January was a factor. Certainly some other denizens of the bulb
house (which is unheated and open on the sides) are flowering unusually
heavily this spring. I'm grateful for that, since there have been a
number of visitors to see them, including some new acquaintances who
attended a party for Kit Strange, a staff member working in the bulb
collection at Kew.

Jane McGary

Portland, Oregon, USA

_______________________________________________
pbs mailing list
pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net
http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…