Sternbergia 2008

[mark smyth]

Franz I dont know if you have shown a photo but what does your meadow look like in the summer?

[ranunculus]

Magnificent Franz ... and your plants are too!

[Gerry Webster]

Art - Yes, my plants of S. greuteriana also emerge with the leaves & on a slant. I suspect this may be the Cretan form.  I'm wondering whether yours is the Karpathos form which seems to be  both less common & superior. The key feature seems to be the presence of stolons. If your plant is not S. greuteriana it's difficult to know what it could be given the size.

[art600]

Gerry

I will look for stolons some time in the future.

I must ask Alan for more details - do not know if he viited Karpathos.

[hadacekf]

Mark,
Plant care is substantially watering.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Franz,
you're a magician ! 

[hadacekf]

Thank you all together for the kind comments.
Franz

[art600]

I am now able to post pictures of my greuteriana, together with sicula.  Not the best photos I have ever taken, but the weather today has been atrocious and it was dificult to get flowers to open.

I am repeating my much admired sternbergia, and I think it is now obvious that it is not greuteriana - the flower is at least twice the size of greuteriana.  The flower is also about 60% the size of my sicula.

Middle two pictures are greutriana, and the last one is sicula

[Gerry Webster]

Art - I agree that your  'mystery' Sternbergia looks different to both your greuteriana & to mine. And my greuteriana looks different to yours! I'll try to post a picture when I have more flowers & less rain - in these conditions photography is virtually impossible. It would be really useful to know where Alan collected the plant & what he thinks regarding its identity.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

I won't interfere in the discussion about exact names, but it sure is a very nice potful Art !

[art600]

 

[Ian Y]

Arthur, I am taking a break form trying to sort out our on going PC problems to catch up on the recent forum postings.
Your pot of Sternbergia sicula is beautiful whether it is true sicula I am not clear.
What I am convinced of is that most of what I have grown as sicula is at best a hybrid between sicula and lutea if not just a small narrow leaved variation of lutea.
I suspect S. sicula is like the one you show but as the best paper on Sternbergia is in German I am unable to find out the latest opinions.
I do not think that flowering with or without leaves is a reliable diagnostic as it can vary from season to season depending on temperature and moisture levels.
One thing for sure is they are all beautiful and you are lucky to flower them so well.
Hopefully I will be able to show some of mine flowering soon.

[art600]

Ian
If the bulbs multiply as well as it flowers, I will put your name on some for next year

[Gerry Webster]

Sternbergia  greuteriana.
This was given to me some years ago by Erna & Ronald Frank. I don’t know  its origin. S. greuteriana is recorded from Crete & the Karpathos group of islands. Collected forms from Karpathos are reported to be stoloniferous & to resemble miniature forms of S. lutea. This plant is not stoloniferous &, insofar as it resembles anything, it is some forms of S. sicula. My guess, therefore, is that it may be Cretan in origin. I find it  not very free flowering &  suspect that it needs more of a summer bake than it currently receives

[art600]

Sternbergia lutea - I hope