Podophyllum

[johnw]

Thanks for that Robin.  Perhaps I will have a shot at some hybridizing with Podophyllum peltatum pollen.  It would be nice to use the pink flowered form. Does Podophyllum pollen require refrigerator drying?

johnw

[Tony Willis]

John have you seen my posting no 91 on the 7th April concerning storing the pollen. It was very successful in the fridge.

[johnw]

John have you seen my posting no 91 on the 7th April concerning storing the pollen. It was very successful in the fridge.

Thanks for the reminder Tony. Sounds easy enough, hopefully I can find someone with P. peltatum for pollen.  It was a terrific weed here that almost defied eradication.  Robin mentions using pollen of peltatum but I wonder if crosses will work in reverse.

On the way to work this morning I was wondering if anyone has treated sprouting Podophyllum seedlings with colchicine or surflan.  Might be interesting to see how big & thick the leaves would get, also the prospect of coming up with chromosome matches. re: the latter I will have to look at the Epimedium book to see if there are counts for the species as I know little about them.

johnw

[Tony Willis]

Robin

I am interested in your naming of the various podophyllum species and let me say at the start I am not suggesting you are incorrect.

 I obtained mine from China and they came with a variety of names some clearly wrong. I have used Stern’s book to try and sort them out. Both P. delavayi and difforme seem clear, see my pictures of delavayi. I only have a small difforme and have not photographed it.

 In your post 99 on the 18th April you showed a picture of Podophyllum pleianthum which corresponds in appearance with some of my plants. Looking at the key in Stearn for pleianthum, he states that with an odd exception the flowers are held in the fork of the leaves and in versipelle on the petiole. On all my plants that look like yours they are held on the petiole, see my picture podophyllum 1 showing both the leaves and an underside view of the flowers.

In the case of podophyllum 2 this is again similar but this has three leaves again with the flowers on the uppermost petiole.

Where are the flowers held on yours?

If you look at podophyllum 3 this has leaves like delavayi without the colour seen in that species and the general size and shape of the plant is like delavayi but the flowers are again held on the petiole.

Finally looking at podophyllum 4 this has deeply divided leaves with the flowers on the petiole but it is a much smaller plant than pleianthum/versipelle and seems quite distinct from them.

Teeth and hairs on the leaves seem variable and not a consistent factor.

Apart from delavayi I have no plants with the flowers in the fork

I have raised some of these plants from seed but it is unlikely that they have hybridised.

He does of course in his introduction to the section give the species numbers as 2-12

I would welcome your comments.

[johnw]

Tony - I await Robin's take on the Podophyllums as well.  For the last 4 nights I sat down after supper with Stearn and after a half an hour I am more confused than ever.  I think I will have to put together a spreadsheet in excel, list the species and id traits to make sense (?) of it all and see where that leaves things.

I talked to the friend that gave me two plants labelled "veitchii" and he says they may be hybrids - perhaps delavayi x difforme! 

Page 276 the Stearn book says of P. pleianthum x verispelle "pleianthum which sometimes produces the inflorescence along the petiole".  I not so happy with sometimes on one page and, as you say, "with the odd exception" on anothert.  Compare pg. 272 Stearn drawing of pleianthum with pg 39 of Phillips & Rix. My pleianthum ex cw seed The Rhododendron Species Foundation pleianthums near Seattle are fork-flowerers. 

Twenty years ago the emodiis sold around here were small flowered and with rather uninteresting new growth, now they all seem to be rather good.

Sounds like we may be too cold here for versipelle (though there is  a var. sichuanense which might do) and auranticole. Would you agree?

johnw

[ichristie]

Hi all, super pictures and very interesting information, I think we have a lot to learn about Podophyllum especialy those imported from China, the more pictures we post the better it gets,  cheers Ian the Christie kind.

[Roberto Gamoletti]

Friends
Here more paris flowering here. The first one is rather small about 8 cm tall with  several nice small leaves. The other one has dark filaments and is about 15 cm tall. Both are growing for their first year in pots.
Thank you again for help in identification. Any idea if they could be self pollinated or if they cross pollinate? I could try to collect some pollen if someone is interested in.
Roberto

[Robin Callens]

Hi Roberto,

The first Paris has the looks of P. lancifolia but P. lancifolia is normally about 70 cm tall.
The second one is P. delavayi. No doubt.

Robin

[Robin Callens]

Tony,

Podo 1: Before going in to the discussion whether this a P. pleianthum or versipelle I want to make some pics of my own plants.

Podo 2: what do the flowers look like on this one?

Podo 3&4: These look very interesting, they seem to have characteristics from both P. delavayi and pleiathum/versipelle.
Where are the flowers positioned, what do they look like and are these plants grown from seed?

Robin

[Tony Willis]

Robin

the flowers are not yet developed on any of the pdophyllums and are at very early bud stage.

I expect those on podo 2 are going to be the same as on podo 1

On podo 3 & 4 the flowers(still buds) are positioned on the petiole

I grew these from my own seed.

Remember that I got all the original plants (except one which I think came from Aberconwy nursery as delavayi) from China. I imported them myself and they came with a variety of names some of which were clearly wrong. This is part of the problem of me trying to name them.Some may even be the same clones sent as different plants. They were all dormant rootstocks.

I realise we need to look at the flowers and this may present a problem as I am going to California/Oregon on Wednesday for a couple of weeks and they may flower whilst I am away.Hopefully they will develop slowly and we can still see them when I get back.

The two auranticaule you sent me are growing well and are in leaf,thank you.

You will see that johnw has some he is also trying to identify.

Its an interesting subject involving some really good plants.

[johnw]

Happy to report Podophyllum pleianthum has made it through its first winter here. And in a spot where the ground was frozen.

Maggi - It might make sense to move the Podophyllum postings to its own topic?

johnw

[Maggi Young]

Maggi - It might make sense to move the Podophyllum postings to its own topic?

johnw

I have split off the Pod Talk! May have missed one or two posts, will check more fully later.

[Tony Willis]

Some of the podophyllums are now in flower.

Here are some pictures of both the foliage and the flowers. I have decided with the help of Stearn's book on the identification.

Podophyllum delavayii
Podophyllum mairei (this looks just like pleianthum/versipelle from the foliage but has different flowers)
Podophyllum pleianthum but this may be versipelle.


I have then taken of some flowers and show these seperately.

At the moment I have only one delavayi in flower and have stored the pollen. I have two of each of the others in flower but each may be the same clone and so will not set seed although I may get hybrid sed if it ever gets warm and dry enough for the flys to get around. They all smell awful.

[Diane Whitehead]

When I used to look through the seedlist, I'd always choose seeds of
plants I did not have.  Then I read that plants in commerce were often
not representative of the species, that there was often great variation
in the wild.

I changed my tactics.  If I already had a plant which grew well for me,
I would order seeds of it, particularly wild-collected seed, though not
exclusively.

Podophyllum hexandrum is one such plant.  Here is a box of seedlings,
some from seed labelled plain hexandrum, some hexandrum Rosea,
both from society lists, and some collected in Kanding, Sichuan, bought
from the Pilous seedlist.

Unfortunately my labels migrated, so I'm not sure which plants came
from which seeds.

[Paul T]

Tony,

That P. delavayi is a stunner.  Glorious flowers and foliage.  Amazing.

Diane,

What a range of leaf forms and colours.