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Monday, March 31, 2014

Exit March


Fritillaria eastwoodiae

I've always loved plants named after Alice Eastwood. My old mentor Jack Poff would tell stories about her, I don't know if he ever met her but he had great stories about her botanical expeditions.

So this particular plant is interesting in that the flower on the right actually developed underground. Long after the flower stalk on left emerged, I noticed a bulge in the soil surface. Scraping around a bit, I uncover this blanched out flower stalk with all these white buds on it. I'm attributing this to an application of a trifluralin based preemergent herbicide called snapshot 2.5tg.

I don't use preemergents every year, mostly because of the cost associated with it. Seems I can only afford it about every other year.

This year I noticed a soil crusting effect that was causing some emergence issues. There is really a lack of published data of the effects of chemicals on the bulbs I grow. Lots of stuff available for tulips, but try to find a study run on species fritillaries.

So I think next year I'm gonna run an experiment on a few different preemergent herbicides to really quantify the effects.... if I had any peers I would let them read it so it can be called peer reviewed! Haha....that's really a stab at my lack of graduate school credentials.



Fritillaria stribyrni......????
Question marks are for the species spelling which I don't think I have right but I'm writing this on a telephone in my bulb house.

Happy to say goodbye to a very wet march and hoping for some sunnier skies in April.

Cheers,
Mark

7 comments:

  1. Almost Mark. It's Fritillaria stribrnyi.

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  2. "The first Flora of Bulgaria was published by the Czech Josef Velenovský in 1891. In the course of his work on the Bulgarian flora he made six visits to Bulgaria between 1884 and 1887 and it was on his third visit in 1889 he meet Václav Střibrný, a fellow Czech working in Bulgaria. Střibrný became an assiduously collector for Velenovský and it was on one of Střibrný collecting trips that he discovered this new Fritillaria growing below thorn-bushes, near Nova Mahala, in 1892. The following year, on his forth collecting trip to Bulgaria, Velenovský collected further specimens in fruit and later that year described Střibrný new species as Fritillaria stribrnyi. "
    Fritillaria stribrnyi Velen. in Sitzungsber. Königl. Böhm. Ges. Wiss., Math.-Naturwiss. Cl. 37: 61 (1893).
    A wonderful species and becoming rare in cultivation, Congratulations on growing it so well Mark.

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  3. Thanks Ron! That's the kind of info I want so badly to get on the blog with the pictures. I even said earlier that I was going to look up all the botanists behind these plants. Sadly, the reality of it is I never can find the time to sit down and research that stuff.....thanks again! You are a great resource!

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  4. Alice Eastwood is near and dear to the hearts of Coloradoans: although she was born in Canada, she grew up in Denver, where she graduated from school and taught at East High School (which is only about five blocks from Denver Botanic Gardens). She wrote the first flora of Colorado (actually plants of Denver) and went on to be the first professional woman botanist in California where she famously saved the type specimens of California plants during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire: she was honored at an International Botanical Congress when she was in her nineties. There is a superb biography of her "Alice Eastwood's Wonderland".

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    Replies
    1. This is excellent! I'm excited to read this biography. Mark

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  5. Will you offer Fritillaria eastwoodiae and Fritillaria recurva bulbs for sale?

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  6. Hi Larry,

    I can't say for certain if I will have either on the list this year. I have them propagated but they are slow to bulk up and I want to send out bulbs that are close to blooming size, so if not this year. Probably next. All the best, Mark

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