Fritillaria raddeana

The Dwarf Crown Imperial is one of the first of the Fritillaria to bloom in the open garden for me. It's a magnificent plant that seems to be pretty diehard. In fact the greenhouse grown specimens are actually behind the open garden specimens in terms of phenology. 

Fritillaria raddeana blooming in a whiskey barrel by the carport.

Charles Hervey Grey, in the 1938 "Hardy Bulbs" had this to say about it: "A native of Turkestan, near Chodoscha-Kali-bami, collected by Dr. Radde in 1886.......It flowers in May, I do not understand  why it should never have been introduced into cultivation in Great Britain, as Regel writes that it was established in pots at St. Petersburg in 1889."

I've never understood the flowering in May, since it's always in bloom in Feburary here as a long as I have had it. Perhaps the St. Petersberg winters leave it dormant for much longer. I do think Mr. Radde deserves a mention here as he was quite the naturalist and certainly his namesake Fritillaria does not dissapoint.

Gustav Radde 1831-1903

 Radde was the German borne son of a schoolmaster, who had little education and started into a career as an apothecary, before he became interested in natural history and left for a life of and adventuring naturalist. He followed the swiss botanist, Christian Von Steven on travels throughout Crimea where they described Birds, Insects and many flowers. You can tell by Gustave Radde's picture that he was not one to sit around dusty libraries studying prose. He traveled in India, around the Black Sea, North Africa, Siberia, Japan in addition to Crimea. 

Greenhouse grown specimen has softer yellow coloring, the garden grown get a bit of a bronze blush that looks quite attractive. 

This is one of those plants that is increasingly rare in it's native habitat, an interesting read that sheds some light on the above mentioned phenology can be read online: 

Life Cycle and Phenological Growth Stages in Endangered Fritillaria raddeana Regel Using BBCH Scale in Its Natural Habitat, Northern Khorasan Province, Iran 

Sajad Alipour A, Ali Tehranifar B*, Mahmoud Shoor C , Leila Samiei D, Homayoun Farahmand E A Ph.D. in Ornamental Plants, Department of Horticultural Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

Fritillaria raddeana is said to be medicinal, "According to traditional descriptions, Fritillaria is slightly cold, and affects the lungs (to clear heat and moisten dryness, and used for hot-type bronchitis with dry cough) and the heart (to calm heart fire). Fritillaria is also used for treating lumps beneath the skin, such as scrofulous swellings and breast lumps. Zhe Bei Mu is often used for the treatment of lumps, and the moistening property attributed to Chuan Bei Mu is not needed. It has been adopted into some Chinese herb formulas for treating cancers. Different Fritillaria species possess different chemical profiles, and may have different pharmacological effects."

Epic sunset on the garden as we go into spring. 

Not to always take a simple plant profile back to politics, but as we sit on the verge of the biggest ground war in Europe with Russia threatening to obliterate Crimea and probably draw the world into a Tom Clancy like dystopian novel, It's hard to not look back at that picture of Gustave Radde and wonder what his travels through Crimea must have been like and if the gun was for putting specimens of birds into collection bags or if it was for personal protection. 

Foggy and 35 this morning, but sunny skies are predicted for the afternoon. 

Cheers, 

Mark