Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Specific Families and Genera => Cacti and Succulents => Topic started by: David Nicholson on May 31, 2010, 07:58:00 PM
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We don't seem to have a thread specific to Lewisias so thought I would start one.
Something a little bit different, well for me anyway is Lewisia columbiana var. rupicola and this came to me labelled as 'Saddle Mountain compact form". It has a small, compact rosette with rich deep green shiny segments and although it isn't the most floriferous Lewisia in my collection it makes up for it with the richness of it's flower colour. I think Saddle Mountain is in Oregon?
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Certainly the most compact rosette I've seen on v rupicola. The question is it it due to tender years or true compactness. How old is the plant David? And a lovely shade too!
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Did you mention Lewisias David?
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Awesome Lewi's Michael !! :o :o
David, you could have expected this counter attack from the Green Isle.... ;D ;D ;D ;D
Love your Columbiana form as well ! Very delicate !
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Did you mention Lewisias David?
I did Michael, just to prompt you to show some ;D
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Certainly the most compact rosette I've seen on v rupicola. The question is it it due to tender years or true compactness. How old is the plant David? And a lovely shade too!
Martin, I'll PM you.
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If it wasn't raining I'd go out right now and photograph yet more Lewisias, and as quite a few have the initials MJC on the labels I suspect you might recognise some of them Michael! :)
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Some might know I'm a Lewisia fan too... ;)
1 to 8 : Some simple L. Cotyledon in different shades , some in pots, some in the garden.
9) An Lewisia columbiana x cotyledon with a colour I like very much
10) Last but not least : Lewisia x rediviva from Michael J.C's stable !! ;)
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Luc,
Great collection, Ilike it. :)
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Well come on guys. That's not enough. ;D
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I was very surprised when my two potted L. tweedy alba started to shrivel and die as I thought they had been well drained and I was doing everything right after a very good flowering. They didn't come away in my hand though so maybe it wasn't rot. Then I realized they were in fact, very dry so watered copiously. One began to show some signs of recovery and is reasonable again but the other remained shrivelled and became even worse. Then I put it in a bucket with some water in the bottom but not much happened.
Last week we had 8 inches of rain(!). The bucket became full and runneth over for a few days, the Lewisia totally submerged and now, it is bright and perky, the foliage turgid and succulent again. I've taken it out of the bucket because there could be too much of a good thing, but I think the lesson learned is that L. tweedyi at least, does not like to be dry. I suspect that the problem was that the roots were so tightly packed in the pot (a large one) that water hadn't been able to penetrate.
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Very interesting observations Lesley !
Thanks for sharing this - fascinating to hear that it regenerates new leaves so late in your Autumn ! ???
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Yesterday we drove east along Highway 3 over the Cascades to the drier side of the range looking for Lewisia columbiana var columbiana. We found thousands of plants just coming into flower at about 1350 m on a rocky ridge above the highway, south of Princeton, British Columbia. In wet seep areas there were numerous flowering plants of Lewisia pygmaea. Also in flower on the ridge were Erythronium grandiflorum, Fritillaria affinis and Calypso bulbosa. Fritillaria pudica had finished flowering.
Not far from this site is the only known location of Lewisia tweedyi in Canada. Further east, in the drier Okanagan Valley, Lewisia rediviva flowers by the highway. Highway 3 is called the Crowsnest Highway (from the name of the pass over the Rockies). For those who appreciate alpine flora, a more appropriate name in southwestern BC would be Lewisia Highway as four different Lewisias can be found not far from the road.
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There are more Lewisias here
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/michaelJcampbell63/24022008LewisiaCollection1TheseHybsHaveAllBeenMadeByMeOverTheLast15Years#
If anyone is interested.
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They never cease to amaze me Michael !!!!
:o :o :o
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Thanks Luc,I try my best. :)
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Lewisia columbiana 'Alba'
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That's a nice one David, very airy and delicate-looking.
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Glorious pics everyone. Absolutely glorious. What wonderful colours. Here, despite it being winter, I still have a few flowers here and there on the basic Lewisias. All are looking happy thankfully. I've got signs of regrowth on one pot that was dormant, and got regrowth on another that was dormant, and have since lost almost all of them to rot. I definitely have some fine tuning to do on the watering side of things. Still, I live and learn (even if some of the Lewisias don't). ;) All of them are from seed from friends here in the forums, so I hope I can learn to do them justice. This topic is just reminding me of how fantastic some of the colours are. Thanks everyone.
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I like that one David !!
If ever.... ::) ;)
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Could I have some expert opinions on these two:
1 Lewisia columbiana var wallowensis (note different colours from the same packet)
2 Lewisia leeana (from a nursery in Northern Norway)
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Hi Stephen, un-expert opinion herewith.
Taking the second one first. I haven't seen Lewisia leeana in the flesh, as it were, but having looked in "Lewisias" by Roy Davidson I don't think your is. I quote "L. leena is set apart from all others of it's genus by it's unique quill-shaped leaves, which persist through the year. Ira Gabrielson (1932) summed up it's overall appearance 'It amy be said to borrow the leaves of L. rediviva and the numerous small flowers of L. columbiana". I think your plant has probably a lot of cotyledon blood in it.
Back to you first one and I find this more difficult as it is not easy to tell from your pic how tall your flower stems are, and the shape of your leaves. Davidson says "But if the leaves are 3.5cm long and correspondingly narrow, with pointed tips........."
Maybe Michael Campbell will have ago.
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No 2 is a Cotyledon x Longipetala hyb.
Sorry,I put that the wrong way round ,should have said. No 2 is a Longipetala x Cotyledon hyb.
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Many thanks for your quick feedback. Here's a couple of older pictures of the leaves on no. 1
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Stephen, I'm not sure, and you may just have to settle for it being columbiana full stop. The differences in the sub species seems to come down to a) the leaves; b) size of plant and leaves; c) where it is found in the wild.
I think I can do no better than quote in full from Davidson.
"... the leaves are less than 3.5cm long (3.5-10cm long and more than 8mm broad in columbiana columbiana) and correspondingly narrow, with pointed tips and lower bracts entire, the uppermost ones dentate but not glandular and petals are 5-8mm long and the plant is approx. 10-20cm in height (20-30cm and can be up to 50cm in c c); and is found in the vicinity of Hells Canyon of the Snake River in Wallowa County, Oregon and Idahoe County, Idaho, and sporadically at summits of highest ridges in Custer, Elmore, Lemhi and Valley Counties on the granitic Idaho batholith."
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::)
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With regard to the Lewisia columbiana I think as usual these varieties are split on minor variations and if you were given a plant in a pot with no indication as to its origin then it could be any of them.
Here is Lewisia columbiana var columbiana on Blewitt Pass Washington. The flowers came in a variety of shades
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Thanks, Tony! My plant was seed propagated from one of the seed exchanges, but it pre-dates when I started documenting origin of everything...
Thanks also to David N for the ID info - I also have a var columbiana. I can try keying them out next time they are in flower.
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Hi Stephen, I think your Lewisia no 2 is very like Lewisia Little Peach which is around in large numbers in the U/K it is a L. longipetala hyb produces good seed and flowers over a long period, cheers Ian the Christie kind.
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Hmmm... Well, the first picture below is what I bought as Little Plum...It flowers a month earlier than my no.2 above (early June here against early July)
The second picture is a purported Lewisia leeana in a garden in Tromsų last summer. What do we think of this one, could it be the real Quill leaf (or is it something else entirely)?
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It's a long time since we grew Lewisia leeana and I know there wouldn't be any digital pix, but that one in bud looks pretty close!
Here are links to two large potfuls of Lewisia leeana alba, one winning a Farrer medal in England and one out for consideration for a Forrest medal in Aberdeen
http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=3513.msg90890#msg90890 alba version winning Farrer medal
http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=1798.msg45634#msg45634 another alba out for consideration for a Forrest medal....
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Hi Stephen, You have Lewisia Little Plum and Little Peach as Ian said. Did you just buy Little peach? it flowers from seed in the first year but later than older plants. When settled they will both flower again in the autumn, great value plants and easier to grow outside than most Lewisias. Look out for new colours soon to be released ;)
Susan
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Many thanks, Maggi and Susan! Yes, I confused Peaches and Plums (must pay more attention!).
Yes, I bought Little Peach at a nursery in Northern Norway (as L. leeana).
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Hi Stephen, You have Lewisia Little Plum and Little Peach as Ian said. Did you just buy Little peach? it flowers from seed in the first year but later than older plants. When settled they will both flower again in the autumn, great value plants and easier to grow outside than most Lewisias. Look out for new colours soon to be released ;)
Susan
Aye, aye, I've made a note of that....... ;)
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Hi Stephen, You have Lewisia Little Plum and Little Peach as Ian said. Did you just buy Little peach? it flowers from seed in the first year but later than older plants. When settled they will both flower again in the autumn, great value plants and easier to grow outside than most Lewisias. Look out for new colours soon to be released ;)
Susan
Aye, aye, I've made a note of that....... ;)
As have I. Make sure you tell us more at the appropriate time Susan. Just don't tell the boss I'm considering another Lewisia or two :-X
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As have I. Make sure you tell us more at the appropriate time Susan. Just don't tell the boss I'm considering another Lewisia or two :-X
That goes for me too, Susan... what the BD doesn't know the BD cannot mump about! :-X
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Little Cherry would be good, especially if it were the very dark, crimson/black kind. :D
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Just noticed this one in a place I have no record of putting it and it's gone from where I did put it ;D. Saw it was a Lewisia and guessed (don't know how ;)) that it was Lewisia serrata - checked my notes and I see I had sown it in 2007 from SRGC seed... You'll probably now tell me it's a hybrid....
Sorry for the poor picture quality - poor light....
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Look out for new colours soon to be released
Interesting,very interesting.
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I think Saddle Mountain is in Oregon?
It doesn't appear that anyone has yet answered David's question, but the answer is yes, this particular Saddle Mountain is in Clatsop County, Oregon, in the Coast Range about 50 miles NW of Portland. It is truly an amazing place. You can get a bit of a sense of its geography by zooming in on Google Earth (the coordinates are 45°58'07"N lat. and 123°41'09"W long); the view in Google Earth looking from west to east is particularly cool because of the shadows in the most recent (August 15, 2005) imagery.
Nathan Miller wrote an article on Saddle Mountain in the fall 2008 issue of "Rock Garden Quarterly" that provides a nice overview. Also a plant list for the site can be found on-line at http://users.reachone.com/columbiacoastplants/documents/Saddle%20Mtn8-04.pdf. I'd be happy to post some of my photos from a visit in late May if anyone would like to see them.
Ed
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I think Saddle Mountain is in Oregon?
I'd be happy to post some of my photos from a visit in late May if anyone would like to see them.
Ed
Yes, please, Ed!
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Me too please Ed, and thanks for answering my question.
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Just had to jump in and show a suuny picture to brighten up a dull afternoon.
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Lovely Shelagh, cheered me up no end
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Thanks for jumpin' in Shelagh !
It's a gorgeous bunch !!
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Beautiful Shelagh, you must tell us how to grow them to that kind of size.
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I agree, they are overflowing the pots and look sensational - what do you feed them on Shelagh? :D
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Chocolate cake and black pudding. ;D
They look fantastic Shelagh. 8)
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Chocolate cake and black pudding. ;D
... and watered with a measure of G & T ;)
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Chocolate cake and black pudding. ;D
... and watered with a measure of G & T ;)
I hope I come back as a Lewisia! ;D
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Bliss!
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... and watered with a measure of G & T ;)
Cannot believe this ??? ??? (just met her (Shelagh) once) ;)
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... and watered with a measure of G & T ;)
Cannot believe this ??? ??? (just met her (Shelagh) once) ;)
We all have our secret (or not so secret) vices Luit. ;D
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I spent some serious energy this year trying to secure a wild collection of Lewisia rediviva for my new seed list----you cannot imagine the difficulty of this task!!!!!
Literally hundreds of emails and phone calls later, and many, many false leads on availability, I have finally managed to find some....which will hopefully arrive soon. In the meantime, was doing some research on range of the species, etc. etc. and ran across this sweet little UTube, worth looking at. If you never knew about the seed dispersal mechanism of this plant---do watch to the end of the video. Lovely!!!!
Edit : August 2012- sadly the video has been removed from youtube.
What may be deceiving on the video is that by the time the spent flowers (containing the seed at the center) start tumbling and blowing around to disperse the seed, they are quite dry and transparent. The calyptra is a parasol-shaped group of twisted petals and stamen in the center of the bloom. At the stage of dispersal, the calyptra which is up to this point, still attached and protecting the seeds at the center, falls off and the remainder blows with the wind....
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I may have missed that mechanism on mine but I'm inclined to think I just haven't had seeds form. Certainly no self-sown seedlings from my single clone. But I have maybe 100 to play with, from Ron Ratko's seed. 8)
Is that same word calyptra, used for the little hat that falls off the pod of a Jeffersonia? and why Calyptridium? I mean how does the word apply there?
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Calyptra: Greek: kaluptra--a veil, or covering.
1. a membranous hood covering the spore-bearing capsule of mosses and liverworts
2. any hoodlike structure, such as a root cap
In Lewisia: calyptra (the petals closing over each other and carried up on the capsule)
Calyptridium ---generic name derived from a characteristic
of the corolla, which closes over the top of the ovary after flowering and is
subsequently torn off at the base to form a cap or calyptra over the developing fruit,
a feature shared with several other portulacaceous genera.
The fruit of Jeffersonia is what the botanists call a pyxis, that is, a round box full of seeds, which when ripe has a lid which turns back and lets them out.
A pyxis is a type of Greek pottery used by women to hold cosmetics, trinkets or jewellery. It was usually a round box with a separate lid.
These are two internet pictures by Dorothy Staggs showing Lewisia reviva with the dried flowers & calyptra still attached at center, then detached, with seed in center of capsule.
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Dorothy yesterday sent me this picture of just one of her 16 beds for Lewisia rediviva.
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great bed of lewisias! does dorothy sell the plants or seed? that's a lot of one species...
bedrock seeds in (outside) edmonton, sells the species (seed and or plants), presumably from alberta origin to start with, as their business is alberta native plants, but they don't say much about origins..
my impression though, is that they do an initial wild collection of seed and subsequently use their own open pollinated garden seed (its the only lewisia they carry)
i would like best to get alberta seed, but we know how absent that is in general in the trade :(..
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Now that Ron Ratko has retired it looks as though it is going to be impossible to get hold of wild seed from the North Western USA I used to rely on him for Lewisia species as well as a whole host of other things.
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so many of us seed and plant folks are getting to about the same age....where the physical demands of the wild collecting (even the demands of the cleaning & packaging & writing the descriptions) becomes very onerous.
i think it is time for (young) blood who love this kind of life to take up the banner. it's not a life for those without tough skin and determination. more than anything, a deep love of nature. and there is the learning curve---but, there is so much more information out there now than in the 20+ years since i first started. we all had to learn it firsthand then, experientially.
i have always been astounded by how few North American seed collectors there actally are---and especially in the areas where the really worthwhile/choice plants are as well. it sometimes takes incredible effort to find seed even of a particular species (my lewisia rediviva for example). the rockies of alberta are a choice area for someone to concentrate on, as is the eastern usa.
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There you are Cohan, a ready made business opportunity. You could collect seed and write travelogues as well. All of these could be carried out in the second part of your week ;D
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There you are Cohan, a ready made business opportunity. You could collect seed and write travelogues as well. All of these could be carried out in the second part of your week ;D
yes, cohan---BUT I know for sure you could not undertake the mandate on your bicycle!!!!!
it was always my dream to do the Alberta natives; but alas....so many species, so little time.
and, i should mention that one of our forumnist, Linda Foulis in the Red River Valley of Alberta has been encouraged (nagged?) by me to expand her (already existing) seed business into native species. she has, in fact, taken the first plunge this year---and will be listing some wild collected AB natives soon, with plans to expand the listings in the future. i am already planning a trip to visit her next summer for some mutually beneficial botanizing/seed collecting.
i know I will not be able to leave Canada, when the times comes to become a gypsy, without at least one botanizing trip to Newfoundland and one last trip to the province where my heart has always been ---Alberta.
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Thanks so much for all that information. I am becoming known on the Forum as "The lazy Googler."
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Great news about Linda's "conversion" ;) :) :)
I am sure there is a continuing market for north american native plant seeds .
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There you are Cohan, a ready made business opportunity. You could collect seed and write travelogues as well. All of these could be carried out in the second part of your week ;D
yes, cohan---BUT I know for sure you could not undertake the mandate on your bicycle!!!!!
it was always my dream to do the Alberta natives; but alas....so many species, so little time.
and, i should mention that one of our forumnist, Linda Foulis in the Red River Valley of Alberta has been encouraged (nagged?) by me to expand her (already existing) seed business into native species. she has, in fact, taken the first plunge this year---and will be listing some wild collected AB natives soon, with plans to expand the listings in the future. i am already planning a trip to visit her next summer for some mutually beneficial botanizing/seed collecting.
i know I will not be able to leave Canada, when the times comes to become a gypsy, without at least one botanizing trip to Newfoundland and one last trip to the province where my heart has always been ---Alberta.
interesting thought, david, but as kristl points out, the most exciting species tend to be rather far flung, so i'd need to find faster transport ;D i was theoretically supposed to start driving when we moved out here, but i find a lifetime of paranoia (in the background--in years of city living, i had no reason to even think about driving) is not so easily overcome, and i need some more calming approach than the typical get in the car on a road (which all seem fearfully narrow targets to me) and start driving!
my housemate is doing all the driving so far, which works ok for work and shopping, but he will not stop by roadsides for seedcollecting (much less leave pavement any more than already required by our gravel road residence) apart from occasionally in the mountains..
which brings us to the next problem--most of the alpine areas are in national parks, and if there is a way to get permits for collecting there, i have not been able to find it; kristl, do you know anyone who has done so and how?some searching might find more high areas (lots of low-medium areas) that are in provincial forest land, which is much less restricted.. some of the non-national park alpine areas are even farther away from me--easily overnight trips required...
i am interested in seed collecting for sure, definitely a steep learning curve, as kristl mentioned--not just on the plants, that's almost the easy part, and definitely the fun part, even if frustrating when your lesson is learned by missing a species for another year ;D --but seemingly obvious things like cleaning seed! i need to look into this more, there must be a whole set of equipment (improvised or otherwise) that i don't have! then issues of storage, quality testing, etc...
what seed business does linda have?? either i missed that totally, or have seen it and didn't connect it to linda from here... she is actually in the Red Deer River Valley, as i know you know, actually in the city of red deer last i knew, unless she moved? thats about a 45 minute drive from here, but the interesting part of the Red Deer River Valley begins considerably farther away--probably at least another 45 minutes drive from the city of Red Deer, maybe more..
there are some vendors selling plants/seeds of prairie and to a lesser extent, dryland plants (think mostly perennial border flowers, rather than rock gardens) from alberta, but miniatures from dryland areas and alpines are mostly unrepresented..
david, don't forget alplains for american west seeds...
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And Rocky Mountain Rare Plants:
http://www.rmrp.com/ (http://www.rmrp.com/)
Edit: Sadly, RMRP is no longer in business
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And Rocky Mountain Rare Plants:
http://www.rmrp.com/
have you ordered from them, lori? i've looked at the website, but not ordered so far..
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No, I haven't yet either.
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RMRP have only two Lewisia species listed-nevadensis and rediviva.
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Cohan,
Getting to the plants is a problem everywhere one collects seed, even if the reasons for it are different in each place and for each person. My collecting of alpines in Alberta was not done in parks---and it was A LOT less onerous to get to the plants than here in Nova Scotia where most land is in private ownership. I remember one trip, starting in Edmonton and driving into the Rockies, passing miles and miles of Dryas drummondii lining the road. Soon it was rocky areas with Silene acaulis, Saxifrages etc. all within a few steps of the car. In those days I was only armed with Budd's Flora of the Canadian Prairie Provinces---but there is also Moss's Flora Of Alberta and the more recent Rare Vascular Plants of Alberta.
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Cohan,
Getting to the plants is a problem everywhere one collects seed, even if the reasons for it are different in each place and for each person. My collecting of alpines in Alberta was not done in parks---and it was A LOT less onerous to get to the plants than here in Nova Scotia where most land is in private ownership. I remember one trip, starting in Edmonton and driving into the Rockies, passing miles and miles of Dryas drummondii lining the road. Soon it was rocky areas with Silene acaulis, Saxifrages etc. all within a few steps of the car. In those days I was only armed with Budd's Flora of the Canadian Prairie Provinces---but there is also Moss's Flora Of Alberta and the more recent Rare Vascular Plants of Alberta.
i definitely need to get the moss and packer book; i've having some luck with efloras, but the harder part with that is knowing which species to look at in the first place, since their distribution maps only say if its in the province..
going west from here, the dryas also start before the park boundaries, but i have never seen the silene; i think it must exist though, just up higher than where there is easy access to-i've looked at some online descriptions of some trails that sound like they probably get into the alpine area prior to the parks, though some of those are designated wilderness areas, so still need to check into allowability of collecting; possibly going from edmonton, already farther north, things like the silene are coming down farther..
some of the trail information i saw was from a book, so that's another i need to get ;D
in my immediate area, everything is private property, so i normally am only collecting on roadsides, and on my relatives' farm; i occasionally step across a wire fence by a few metres, or go a few metres onto unfenced land, but no farther than that; this policy is ok for mostly plants of open areas or forest edge, but i only get into real forest on the family's land..
what i would really love to see--not for this thread where we have already gone way offtopic-sorry! is your various seed cleaning apparatus and methods ;D
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cohan,
instead of continuing to go astray in this Lewisia thread---i will start one in
"My Bit Of Heaven"
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cohan,
instead of continuing to go astray in this Lewisia thread---i will start one in
"My Bit Of Heaven"
tks, kristl
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And Rocky Mountain Rare Plants:
http://www.rmrp.com/
have you ordered from them, lori? i've looked at the website, but not ordered so far..
I order seed from them all the time (Rocky Mountain Rare Plants), and it is always excellent. I always get excellent germination from their seed.
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good to know, anne, thanks
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Hi Kristel,
Your Lewisia rediviva bed is great.
my "redivivas" this year.
Kind regards, Wolfgang
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They look superb Wolfgang !!
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And Rocky Mountain Rare Plants:
http://www.rmrp.com/
some others will have seen that RMRP has just put out their 2010 list, and it will be their last!
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Ironic isn't it, now there is a real opportunity Cohan.
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Ironic isn't it, now there is a real opportunity Cohen.
very tempting, but nowhere near realisation (i don't have a fraction of the skill and knowledge sets at this point!)...lol
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Now that Ron Ratko has retired it looks as though it is going to be impossible to get hold of wild seed from the North Western USA
well there goes my idea of growing some North American alpines from seed :'(
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Now that Ron Ratko has retired it looks as though it is going to be impossible to get hold of wild seed from the North Western USA
well there goes my idea of growing some North American alpines from seed :'(
Well, you still have a few options left:-
http://www.alplains.com/
http://www.southwesternnativeseeds.com/
and, if you are very quick as their last list finishes next month
http://www.rmrp.com/
Graham Nicholls has an extensive collection of plants available mail order
http://www.graplant.co.uk/
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A bit earlier in this thread, I introduced you to Dorothy Staggs.
She is someone you should know about.
And of course that amazing Lewisia bed I showed earlier is hers!!!
Dorothy lives in Montana (Lewisia rediviva is the official state flower of that state) and has devoted the past few decades to this particular species---in terms of education, propagation and spreading it far and wide.
Her web site, Bitterroot Heaven, is an insightful view into the species (and into the psyche of this amazing woman).
Her "stages of growth" page is particularly worth looking at.
http://bitterrootheaven.com/default.html
Do check it out.
The photograph is hers.
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Now that Ron Ratko has retired it looks as though it is going to be impossible to get hold of wild seed from the North Western USA
well there goes my idea of growing some North American alpines from seed :'(
Well, you still have a few options left:-
http://www.alplains.com/
http://www.southwesternnativeseeds.com/
and, if you are very quick as their last list finishes next month
http://www.rmrp.com/
Graham Nicholls has an extensive collection of plants available mail order
http://www.graplant.co.uk/
alplains new list is out!
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Allplains seed is superb and I have had excellent results with his Lewisia redivia and brachycalx plus several phlox etc.