Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => Plants Wanted Or For Exchange => Topic started by: Jupiter on January 02, 2015, 08:08:25 PM
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I stumbled across this Primulaceae genus through a link to Iranian flora I saw on the NARGS forum. It looks very interesting and might just be a good alternative to Androsace in hot dry climates like ours... I was shocked to see no results to my search for it on this forum. Am I missing it somehow? I'm very keen to talk to people with experience, direct or anecdotal regarding Dionysia species.
http://www.dionysia4u.com/Pages/Guest%20Photographers%20Photo%20Album.htm (http://www.dionysia4u.com/Pages/Guest%20Photographers%20Photo%20Album.htm)
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You may well ask, Jamus..... it has been asked before about the comparative lack of Dionysia info in the forum..... and the cynical person might think it was because those growing these plants - mostly for the show benches - are reluctant to share their "secrets" ! Perish the thought!
You will see plenty of photos in the Show threads - they are a very popular plant for many of the keen exhibitors. They are plants which, apart from a few, are rather tricky in cultivation. The species are quite beautiful and there has been quite a lot of breeding with them - leading to a good number of hybrids, some of which seem to be a bit more amenable to cultivation. (Some though, have some very suspect colours, to my mind - I prefer the species for the most part.)
However, a search of the forum ( from the Search button fourth from the left in the menu of options near the top of the page - that is to say NOT the big search button near the upper right hand side of the page) will give you quite a list of results and you will find some good info there.....220 results in fact!
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Thank you Maggi, using my iPad this morning and missed the other search feature. Very interesting plants indeed, I hope the mountains in Iran are not too high and their conditions more compatible with Mediterranean climate... Fat chance of that I suppose, the form of the plant clearly suggests adaptation to high alpine conditions. In any case, I'm not going to rest until I have some growing. :)
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I think you might have more success growing them than we do in lowland Scotland. In the wild they are chasmophytes which often grow under somewhat shaded rocky overhangs (though there is a lot of reflected light) in summer-dry mountains of Iran, Afghanistan and adjacent areas.
Superb drainage, low atmospheric humidity, good air movement, careful watering and summer shading should lead to success -at least with the easier species.
Your biggest difficulty will be getting hold of plants or seed in the first place.
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Jamus , I just came across you lamenting that Dionysias are not grown and not available in Australia . I seem to be the only one here to grow the easiest of the genus :
: D. aretioides from the Elburs Mts of North Iran which is not a desert area . I have grown this species for about 40 years , and renew it from cuttings (rather easy ) as it does not set seed for me -one needs drum and pin flowers . I grow some in pots in the glass house and some in the crevice garden where they stay more in character (Tight cushions )I have grown other species , but they have all gone to greener pastures . Re cultivation : follow Steve Garvie's advice ,but fairly dry in winter and normal watering in spring/summer .I will send you a small plant in autumn , if you remind me .
Hope you survive tomorrows high temperatures , the same forcast for Melbourne .
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Thanks Otto, Good luck to you and your garden tomorrow... I may well remind you about the Dionysia, it'd be great to grow aretioides for a start. I have plans to build a new rock garden area in the autumn to accommodate the seedlings I perhaps optimistically envisage growing over winter, from SeedEx seed and seed ordered and waiting for sowing. I think it's a perfect spot and I can't wait to get into the new project, but there really is no point until the cooler weather comes in autumn.
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Jamus - the German seed company Jelitto list Dionysia involucrata (and alba) and D. teucrioides (quite expensive but their seed is very good quality). I don't suppose dionysias are likely to invade the Aussie flora so importing seed would probably not be a problem? It might also be worth contacting Gothenberg Botanic Garden (Henrik Zetterlund) because they have had a long botanical interest in the genus (and the Iranian flora) and seem to be able to grow them like cabbages ;) and they do distribute seed from the garden, though I'm not sure about dionysias. Dionysia aretioides comes well from seed and varies quite a bit which would allow for more selection to your conditions and the possibility of keeping pin and thrum plants to get more seed set. In the UK Tim Lever at Aberconwy propagates many species and hybrids but I think mostly from cuttings - I'm sure he could give valuable advice.
These are a couple of photos planted out in Adrian Cooper's alpine house near to us at Maidstone to give an idea of growing conditions. (He grows choice irises and corydalis and a good bit more in the more exposed upper parts of the rockwork and the dionysias in north-facing crevices lower down).
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Thanks for showing those pictures of Adrian Cooper's plants, Tim . How happy they look growing in that situation - and the whole construction seems an attractive thing in itself. Lovely!
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Tim , I looked through my copies of Gothenburg's Index Seminum for the last 5 years : no Dionysia species listed .
If you want to see a marvellous collection of Dyonisias (species and hybrids ) grown to perfection in an almost vertical Tufa Wall visit Michael Kammerlander in Wuerzburg . He also has a great collection of rare and difficult Juno and Oncocyclus Iris .
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Here's a pic I took of Otto's Dionysia back in September when the Pixie was visiting ;D
cheers
fermi
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Yes I've read about Michael Kammerlander's collection in the AGS Bulletin and seen pictures and heard him speak about it - really quite incredible. They are such specialised plants though and for a nurseryman very few people are interested in growing them outside those who exhibit at the Alpine Shows. (Actually one of the best growers, Nigel Fuller, lives in Kent. Adrian grows them in a landscaped alpine house with many other plants which is especially appealing). I find the diversity of plants too compelling to specialise so much and really like seeing plants growing in a garden setting and learning from their natural ecology, and we have a large garden which we have always opened for charity and which alpines are only part of. If I had a tufa cliff though I think there is a good chance dionysias and jankaea and quite a few other thing would find their way into it ;)
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http://www.gotbot.se/sv/kulturplattformen/Goteborgs-Botaniska-Tradgard/Startsida-Goteborgs-Botaniska-tradgard/Forskning-/Samlingar/Dionysia/ (http://www.gotbot.se/sv/kulturplattformen/Goteborgs-Botaniska-Tradgard/Startsida-Goteborgs-Botaniska-tradgard/Forskning-/Samlingar/Dionysia/)
http://www.gotbot.se/sv/kulturplattformen/Goteborgs-Botaniska-Tradgard/Startsida-Goteborgs-Botaniska-tradgard/Forskning-/Samlingar/Dionysia/Hogerkolumn-Dionysia/Rad-1/Bilder-Dionysia/ (http://www.gotbot.se/sv/kulturplattformen/Goteborgs-Botaniska-Tradgard/Startsida-Goteborgs-Botaniska-tradgard/Forskning-/Samlingar/Dionysia/Hogerkolumn-Dionysia/Rad-1/Bilder-Dionysia/)
Dionysia viewing day: http://www.gotbot.se/sv/kulturplattformen/Goteborgs-Botaniska-Tradgard/Startsida-Goteborgs-Botaniska-tradgard/Besok-oss1/Program/I-Dionysians-hemliga-rum-25-jan--8-feb-1300/ (http://www.gotbot.se/sv/kulturplattformen/Goteborgs-Botaniska-Tradgard/Startsida-Goteborgs-Botaniska-tradgard/Besok-oss1/Program/I-Dionysians-hemliga-rum-25-jan--8-feb-1300/)
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Without bemoaning the utter lack of availability of seeds of plants which would quite clearly do extremely well in the open garden here, with no interference from me, I have a question.
In the old AGS Guide, Dionysias by Grey-Wilson, there is a picture on page 59 of Dionysia lindbergii growing upside down on the roof of a cave.
How do the plants manage this? How do seeds lodge on the roof of a cave? There seems to be only one cushion on the floor of the cave, where the law of gravity would suggest there be more.
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The question of how the seed take root on the roof of a cave is indeed a tricky one . I have a suspicion that the lack of plants on the ground could be down to one thing - collectors ! :-X
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The picture of D. lindbergii was taken in the Darrah Zang Gorge in 1971 during the Grey-Wilson/Hewer expedition. As this is the only expedition ever to have visited the area I think it highly unlikely that the absence of plants on the floor is due to collectors. Much more likely to be due to goats if indeed many seedlings ever grew on the floor as this would be drier than the ceiling. As to plants growing on the ceiling this would be because the seed either blew there on an updraft or was carried by an insect. A seed would need only the tiniest crack to germinate and would receive water from downward percolation.
Paul
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I hope you are correct, Paul.
However, I do not think that that expedition was the only one ever to visit the area before or perhaps since. Of UK trips, Davis was there in 1966, I think, and perhaps Paul Furse in the mid-sixties.
And there may have been others** since, even though no recognised trips have been made since 1978.
** edit - such trips may have been made by botanists outside the UK, as so many other trips to the area were.
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Hi Maggi
Yes, I take your point that Wendelbo and Davis visited the gorge but they didn't collect any material. All plants in cultivation of afghanica, viscidula and microphylla are represented by single clones resulting from the GW/H expedition. The single clone of lindbergii unfortunately was soon lost. Mohammad Alam of Kabul University confirms that no botanists, even Afghan ones, have collected from the gorge for well over 30 years although he believes further exploration is long overdue. Any volunteers to brave the munitions?
Incidentally as regards cultivation advice, an article I wrote appears in the September 2008 AGS bulletin. Unfortunately seed is very difficult to come by except for involucrata which is homostylous. We don't have the right insects for reliable pollination in the UK and hand pollination is difficult and unreliable. Josef Mayr of Munich (www.rare-dionysien.de (http://www.rare-dionysien.de)) used to sell seed but his website has not been updated for over five years and I don't know whether he is still trading, not that it was ever anything other than a pastime for him.
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It seems to me that if seeds were lodged in crevices, then downward percolation of water would dislodge them fairly quickly.....
Read the article, by the way, and I do understand plant addiction. Hyperacquisitivosus plantarum is my name for it. A pleasant affliction.
Quoting the little dionysia book, "Causes of loss have been mainly damping-off in November, during damp muggy weather when there has been little buoyancy in the atmosphere"....a weather condition I have never experienced, and can't imagine.
Yes, the Mayr website has not been updated in many years. Oh well.
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Hi Bob. I like you latinisation of the condition. How I envy your lack of damp, misty autumn weather. I recently bought a Kärcher window vac to dry the inside of the greenhouse windows every morning but it is still an uphill struggle to keep the atmosphere reasonably dry and buoyant although as you will have read, desk fans do also help. I'm sure you're right that some seeds might fall for whatever reason but some clearly get trapped somehow. If you're interested in the genus I rewrote the genus on the on-line AGS encyclopedia last winter. It's hopefully more or less up to date now.
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I don't know; damp misty weather sounds awfully attractive. It happens here for a day, about once every ten years.
It's strange to read the cultivation information for one of my other obsessions, oncocyclus iris: "protect from rain", "protect from winter wet, "ensure good air circulation"; might as well say "protect from elephants". The oncos here probably don't even know that they're not in Turkey. (On the other hand, the list of plants ungrowable here is quite a long one.)
One of the symptoms of H.P. is wild jealousy and refusal to look at pictures or descriptions of unobtainable plants, but I'm so used to this affliction I'll have a look at your revision online.
First snowdrop of the year popping its head out of the snow.
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First snowdrop of the year popping its head out of the snow.
So not exactly the coldest place on earth, then? ;)
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Well grown Dionysia involucrata from Tajikistan
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So not exactly the coldest place on earth, then? ;)
Not any more. The cold spells here usually come at the end of the year. Somewhere, there's a map of North America showing when the coldest time of the year occurs, and it shows a gradual movement eastward.
I looked at the online AGS descriptions of the species in Dionysia It might have saved some typing to abbreviate "shaded limestone cliffs" to SLC. I guess I'll need to get one of those before proceeding with an expedition.
Incidentally, I probably told the story of the one experiment with dionysias here, D. aretioides, but I'll tell it again. Drilled two holes in the inward-slanting side of a trough, planted two plants, and when I checked them a couple of days later they had fallen out of the holes and died.
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Without bemoaning the utter lack of availability of seeds of plants which would quite clearly do extremely well in the open garden here, with no interference from me, I have a question.
In the old AGS Guide, Dionysias by Grey-Wilson, there is a picture on page 59 of Dionysia lindbergii growing upside down on the roof of a cave.
How do the plants manage this? How do seeds lodge on the roof of a cave? There seems to be only one cushion on the floor of the cave, where the law of gravity would suggest there be more.
Dionysia seeds distributed by ants.
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The question of how the seed take root on the roof of a cave is indeed a tricky one . I have a suspicion that the lack of plants on the ground could be down to one thing - collectors ! :-X
half the population Dionysia kossinskiy destroyed a severe drought in 1994. Preserved only tufts on the ceiling.
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half the population Dionysia kossinskiy destroyed a severe drought in 1994. Preserved only tufts on the ceiling.
A real natural disaster in that case.
It must be remembered that most damage is done in all places by habitat destruction by man - sad to relate, as we hear so often with building with no thought to nature or relocations.
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Dionysia seeds distributed by ants.
Ah, myrmecochory. That explains everything. The original cushions must have been on the ground.
I take special care not to kill ants in my garden.