Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Plant Identification => Plant Identification Questions and Answers => Topic started by: Catwheazle on December 13, 2020, 03:03:14 PM
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Winter activity ...
Can someone (simple) explain the difference between Tulipa tarda and Tulipa dasystemon?
Unfortunately, what I found on the internet was very confusing for me :-(
thx
greetings
Bernd
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Hi Bernd, this paper may be useful
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bjm_Zonneveld/publication/281225850_Tulipa_jacquesii_Liliaceae_a_new_species_from_Western_Kyrgyzstan/links/5a0060c0a6fdcc82a30ccbb7/Tulipa-jacquesii-Liliaceae-a-new-species-from-Western-Kyrgyzstan.pdf
It compares the new species with both T. tarda and dasystemon, and there is a handy table with the differences. Basically T. tarda has up to 7 leaves and 'fried egg' colour (white flowers with a central yellow spot). dasystemon has two leaves, only a single flower and the flower is yellow all over.
Best wishes, Tristan
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Many commercial sellers seem to list T. tarda as "T. tarda (syn. dasystemon)" for some reason. They have been doing this for as long as I can remember looking at bulb catalogues (about 40 years). I can only assume that a long time ago T. tarda was circulating in cultivation but wrongly named / misidentified as T. dasystemon. Given that T. tarda is not a synonym for dasystemon I can't understand why they are still doing this. >:( Misidentifications happen, correct the mistake, move on.
And while we're at it, "Fritillaria uva-vulpis (syn. assyriaca)" is another common one of these.... there is really no excuse for it, they are different species.
Anyway, rant over!
Tristan
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Hi Tristan,
thanks for your answer and the very interesting article :-)
Bernd
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Addendum: It's not just like that with the two of them.
Genuine variety and correct names seem to be increasingly unusual.
In the meantime, I don't buy anything from "normal" dealers because
the apprenticeship money is way too much for me.
... and in this case the Google research has only produced chaos :-(
greetings
Bernd