Sternbergia 2008

[Gerry Webster]

[quote author=pehe link=topic=1208.msg59409#msg59409 date=1224658593
Hans, It is from Paul Christian. He claims it is from Karpathos acquired from Bonn Botanical Garden.
I admit it looks like a sicula, but it makes offsets on stolons so I am pretty sure that it is greuteriana. I have not heard of any sicula doing that.
The width of the leaves is about 4 mm.
Poul [/quote]

Poul -  The presence of stolons seems consistent with Christian's description of  the MK form of  S.greuteriana  but Christian also states that  this form has small flowers  which resemble S. lutea whereas the flowers on your plants look quite large & resemble S. sicula. All very odd.

[Anthony Darby]

 

[pehe]

[quote author=pehe link=topic=1208.msg59409#msg59409 date=1224658593
Hans, It is from Paul Christian. He claims it is from Karpathos acquired from Bonn Botanical Garden.
I admit it looks like a sicula, but it makes offsets on stolons so I am pretty sure that it is greuteriana. I have not heard of any sicula doing that.
The width of the leaves is about 4 mm.
Poul

Poul -  The presence of stolons seems consistent with Christian's description of  the MK form of  S.greuteriana  but Christian also states that  this form has small flowers  which resemble S. lutea whereas the flowers on your plants look quite large & resemble S. sicula. All very odd.
[/quote]

Gerry,

The flowers are quite small. Here is a size rank of flowers in my garden (decreasing size):
1. S. sicula Dodona Gold
2. S. lutea
2. S. sicula graeca
4. S. greuteriana

On the first picture you see closest to the camera sicula Dodona Gold, greuteriana(the same plant as above, but a month earlier) and lutea.
It is not easy too compare sizes, but the flowers of greuteriana are clearly smaller than lutea flowers.

The other photos are the same greuteriana at different times

[pehe]

Oron, Dominique and Poul - very nice plants

This Sternbergia sicula flowers well - others still are below soil...

Hans,
Very nice sicula. Does it flower so rich every year?
In Denmark it is only in good years, the flowering is rich, but never as good as this.
Please send some Spanish sunshine and warmth to me!

Poul

[Gerry Webster]

Poul - many thanks for the extra pictures. Yes, the S.greuteriana is small compared to the Dodona plant. In these pics the size difference is comparable to that of my own plants.

[Hans A.]

Very nice sicula. Does it flower so rich every year?

Yes it does - I received this clone from a good friend in germany some years ago - he was also surprised to see how floriferous it is here in the south.

[Gerdk]

Poul,
This seems to be a never ending discussion. I am far from beeing an expert, especially concerning this tricky genus but it seems there is no Sternbergia lutea and also no S. greuteriana.
According the key from Kamari & Artelari S. lutea has bright glossy green leaves without a central stripe. Furthermore lutea and greuteriana both have perianth segments which are rounded at the tip while sicula has acute ones.
In my opinion the best way to identify a greuteriana is to measure the perianth segments which are (1.2)1.5 - 3 cm long and 0.2 - 0.8 cm wide.
Nevertheless I admit freely that I am growing a Sternbergia lutea for more than 10 years which is in fact sicula (never took a closer look until recently). Also I got a greuteriana whose perianth segments are only  2 mm too wide for matching the description. All species mentioned above are able to produce hybrids which eachother.

Gerd

[Anthony Darby]

I noticed that the leaves of the plants I have labelled sicula have a sharp central ridge underneath whereas those labelled greuteriana are smooth or almost flat underneath?

[Gerry Webster]

Anthony - your plants seem to have read the key on p11. Unlike many Sternbergias.

[Hans J]

Hans, It is from Paul Christian. He claims it is from Karpathos acquired from Bonn Botanical Garden.
I admit it looks like a sicula, but it makes offsets on stolons so I am pretty sure that it is greuteriana. I have not heard of any sicula doing that.
The width of the leaves is about 4 mm.

Poul

Hi Poul at all ,

Thank you for your informations to your plant .

I have supposed that your plants comes from P.Christian - I think this is one of the often commercial sources for this plants .
A bit strange for me is the number ( MK 0187 ) - as reference from B.G. Bonn is given : Koenen 21823
The plants of the firstdescription ( Kamari ) comes not from Karpathos - they are collect from eatern part of Crete .

I have never seen a stoloniferus Sternbergia -so maybe you can send us a pic of this plants if you ever repot / replant .

It is not a must that St. greuteriana is stoloniferus - it is only written :
" bulbs up tp 2,5 cm in diameter ,sometimes with stolones or bulbils ......"
on the pic of herbarmaterial is shown a normal bulb !

To plantmaterial from Karpathos :
My idea was earlier too that all material of Sternbergia what came from Karpathos must be St. greuteriana - this is definitiv wrong !
I have visit Karpathos in fall ( last year ) and I found two mountains with Sternbergia ( please look for my report ) - this plants are St. lutea or hybrids with between St. lutea and St. greuteriana or St. sicula.

I agree with Gerd that St. greuteriana must have rounded at the tips of perianths - your plant shows acute tips like St. sicula .

Before some weeks has a friend from this forum shown also a St .geuteriana ex PC and some doubts rise up in me .....

I suppose the other ( for me true ) forms of St. greuteriana comes from Crete and they are distributet more seldom so that we have now this confusing situation.

This is my private opinion after all facts which I know - a finaly judgement which plant is what is only possibly with research of the DNA .

Anyway : thats all really interesting and nice plants

Hans

[pehe]

I have never seen a stoloniferus Sternbergia -so maybe you can send us a pic of this plants if you ever repot / replant .

Hans
This plant is stoloniferus, but unfortunately I can't show it to you.
The bulb was planted in sept. 2003. Soon after a nice roset of leaves appeared, but no flowers. In November some new Small leaves appeared about 6 cm from the original plant. That was the first sign of the stoloniferus nature. I was excited as I have never seen such a behavior before. In 2004, I moved the plant to the present place at the wall, and then I saw two small bulbs on stolons. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures. As it is planted directly in the soil, and it performs so well with lots of flowers, I will not replant it in the near future. But when I do, I take some pictures, I promice.

Poul

[Hans J]

Hi Poul ,

really intersting !
...and now we wait ....

With best wishes
Hans

[pehe]

What I really like by Sternbergia is their ability to withstand bad weather.
The last two weeks have been very windy with lots of rain and even some freezing nights. But the Sternbergia flowers are very rugged and they still  look great.
These lutea have just started flowering. They are offsets planted 2 years ago and grows 1 m from the wall where the motherplant have been flowering for two months! (second picture) That shows the benefit of a warm wall when growing Sternbergia in cold areas.

Poul

[pehe]

Most of my Sternbergias have flowered early and many flowers have been pollinated.
Even in the garden many Sternbergia set seeds.
Two years ago I got seeds from lutea, greuteriana and sicula Dodona Gold too, with the result that I now have seedlings of them all.

Poul

[TC]

To add to the discussion, here are a couple of scans I took on Lesvos in late October 1995