Autumnal Equinox Bloomers

Colchicum 'Oktoberfest'

This one hit it right on the nose, the big Oktoberfest celebration in the Willamette Valley takes place in Mt. Angel, home to the  Mt. Angel Abbey and now celebrating it's 45th year of oompah bands and bratwurst. The huge goblets of pink are really quite a site on this hybrid and they seem to know exactly when the lager will be flowing because they started blooming two days before the celebration. I know it's of German origins but does anyone know it's parentage?

Colchicum alpinum
Just trying to capture the color a little better, this one taken while adjusting the aperature down a notch or two and the exposure compensation up. I think the haze that has been hanging in the valley from the numerous mountain wildfire's has really changed the color on these late summer photo's, it's like a built in filter.

Colchicum bivonae 'Apollo"
Delightfully tessalated, or checkered. I must apologize for the coloring on these photos, I've been moving the aperature down a few steps and I try to make it out the bulb house every evening to shoot whats new, but the flat late summer light and probably my pretty cheap camera seems to turn the pinks to purples.

Colchicum 'Glory of Heemstede'.......Hmmmm is this name correct or is it just a really lame name for a flower?  I mean, Ya, Ya, it's a town in the Netherlands and we all know how important that place is to commercial bulb growers. But did you know that it was the home to George Clifford who hired linneaus to catalog his plant collection a long time ago?.....we all know what linneause did for post and modern horticulture.

Colchicum confusum
I think this one is from Greece, please correct me if I'm wrong. I don't have a big library of bulb literature, and what I do have is hopelessly out of date, But I do love sitting down and observing these plants for a good bit of time in the alpine house. I don't measure stamen length or count petals I just like to look and see what the overall complexity of the specimen has to offer.

Colchicum byzantinum 'album'
Again just messing around with the exposure compensation, by this point the fires have died out a bit and the haze has lifeted from the valley. The colors are once again clearer and brighter.

The Fall bloomers have started

Acis valentina-blooming September 6th. Spain, said to be barely in cultivation. I really like this plant, it's tall stems, and delicate white petals seem rather out of place emerging from a dry pot in the late summer. It so much more looks like spring.

Colchicum byzantinum 'album'-The original species dates back to 1601 when Charles de LeCluse, whose name was latinized to Clusius named it. Said to be of possible hybrid origins between C. autumnale and C. cilicicum.

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Colchicum hierosolymitanum Isreali species, quite heavily studied for it's Colchicine content which is used in the pharmecutical industry to treat rhuematism and gout. It's also used by plant breeders to induce polypoidy in plants, whereby the plants treated with colchicine will contain double the number of chromosomes in the embryo, leading to larger, sturdier or more vigorous plants.

Prospero intermedia-Dainty, but a real "looker" up close. Seems to be getting tossed around, formerly Scilla.

Colchicum alpinum-Alpine Saffron, European species. All of these pictures were taken the first week of September 2011. Temperatures in the lower 90's for most of the week. The summer that wouldn't arrive decided to show up when the kiddo has to go back to school.

A few more spring bloomers

Fritillaria liliacea- wonderful, early Californian, I really do

like the native left coast species.

Fritillaria hermonis ssp. amana

Fritillaria fleischeriana X aurea

Fritillaria biflora x purdyi, one of my all time favorites, this hybrid originated in Janes bulb frames.

Iris graeberiana 'Yellow Falls'

Tulipa cretica-The 1938, 3 volume Hardy Bulbs, by Charles Hervey Grey has this to say about it: "A native of Crete on high mountains, in stony places.......It Flowers in April and is an attactive little plant, very scarce in cultivation."