Pulsatilla 2013

[peter hood]

I've only been away from the forum for a few days and this superb authorative thread with stunning pictures has arrived. I feel I can just look at the pictures again and again. In particular, Olga and Susann have increased our knowledge and appreciation of the Genus. A number of contributions have raised issues I could contribute on, sharing my ignorance.
Many people have difficulties with P.alpina apifolia; I have only tried once and not had great success. Grown from seed coming from the Auvergne, it gradually increased, eventually flowered (after about 5years); not the most impressive flower, the next year it failed to flower, after that it never came up.
I am interested though that successful plants are described as large; because I believe there is a huge difference in the size of the plants in the wild. I have heard others mention this. I have looked through my old photos, and find most of my pictures from the alps are quite small; whereas plants from Andorra were much bulkier - comparable with Susan's huge plants.
I will add a few pictures - apologies that most of them are scans of old prints.
The Auvergne plant is in the garden, the rest in the wild, St. Anton and Grindlewald quite small, Bergamesque alps a bit larger, but nothing like the Andorra plant, which almost felt like a different species.

[peter hood]

 

So while we are discussing these plants, how distinctive is P. rubra from vulgaris? You see this in seedlists quite often and for a long time I assumed it was a form of vulgaris like 'Rote Glocke'. I think gardeners and field botanists will often be aware of a lot more variation in these plants than taxonomists studying them in herbaria, and it must be difficult sometimes to reconcile this with Linnaean nomenclature. The ideal would be to look at populations over time, but no so easy!

Thanks Tim for this introduction into the biggest problem I have in this genus.
The confusion comes from the fact that Pulsatilla vulgaris RUBRA is completely different from Pulsatilla rubra. The first is a lovely brick red form of P. vulgaris that I used to grow in my previous garden. This is often what you get when you get seed labelled Pulsatilla rubrain the exchanges. Pulsatilla rubra comes from France, and is described as a reddish-brown flower, rather like Pulsatilla pratensis. Some books describe it as not very impressive.

My question is - what is the plant I have got. I have put this picture on the forum before - but I must take some pictures of the leaves. The seeds from which this plant grew were collected in the Cevennes, the home of P.rubra. The leaves are much finer than the typical leaves of P.vulgaris. I must check sometime if they are two or three pinnate. The flowers are glorious -
judge for yourselves.Any views? Maybe I should dig through the snow, and have a closer look at the leaves!

[Susann]

Dear Peter, you write you have only been away for some days from the forum. I would like to say; I have only been away for 24 hours, and so much interesting information. First of all, thank you everybody for all beautiful pictures.  The ones from nature especially interesting of course. And very interesting information about size of the apiifolia in nature. The garden ones I have seen ( except my struggling ones) has all been huge. It is quite common in Swedish gardens.
And thank you Josef for telling us that the difference are the seeds ( kostyczewii). That explains it. I red Flora of China yesterday ( floras are lovely bed-table books) and was going to add it´s description of the species, but now I skip it if someone does not ask for it? But it also says that kostyczewii does not have staminodes as I believe all other Pulsatillas has?
The Pulsatilla I received as P x hackelii does look very much as P pratensis ssp nigricans ( = ssp bohemica), but it differs in appearance from all the ones I have sown-different sources- as to be the latter. Involucrate leaves are more pinnate and stems are ticker and the appearance is more “discursive” ( google translate.) But I have now looked at all my photos from Czech gardens and I have seen plants with the same thick stems on some of these as well. Once again, very variable in the nature I guess, and not a  P x hackelii that was given to me. The Swedish form of P pratensis is very beautiful as well, it is more reddish brown.

This is the one received from Gothenburg BG as x hackelii


And here are two from the garden ( Seeds received as P pratensis ssp nigricans)
I end this picture series with a beautiful bud of P pratensis ssp nigricans. I have turned the image upside down because it looks more beautiful this way.

Ian, lovely picture of the P halleri ssp styriaca.  I can not resist counting the flowers of my oldest plants, and it is not unusual well over 40 flowers in the same plant. Both of P halleri and others ( and vulgaris of course, Olga. Habitat pictures to be posted separatly)
Gothenburg Botanical garden has a specimen they claim is P rubra ( I have only seen the true species in pictures) with very finely pinnate leaves, but the flower color is very violet ( light violet). You can see the collection label in the lower left corner. I showed it to curator Henrik Zetterlund and he said it was correctly? In the descriptions it is said to be reddish brown or dull reddish brown? By the way, it is described in Spanish floras as growing there as well.

[Susann]

Olga asked me to show some habitat pictures of P vulgaris. I live in the outskirts of the "southern highlands" of Sweden, I would guess the pictures are from locals around 200 m above sea level, so talking about alpines we would say lowlands. Summer are not very hot. +24-25 at it´s most, with a peak during few days reaching +27-27. Autumn is very rainy and winter brings us rain and snow, barefrost with -20, back and forth, until snow comes to stay around middle-end of January. Snow melts between middle of March-middle of April.  So the flowering time can differ with one month. Spring is usually quite nice.

 I have many times heard of people being chased by stray dogs when on expeditions. I can by own experience tell you that being chased by young bulls is not fun either. One feel very small! There was a sign "warning, grazing bulls" but I honestly interpreted it as I had to be respectful to them; not disturbing them when eating (Yes, I am a city-girl, and a very stupid one). Now I know that the warning was actually meant for me.
The bull locality is overcrowded with P vulgaris plants, but as a difference to all Russian pictures I see of big clumps of P patens, these plants only have one, perhaps two flowers each. Seeds from them grown in garden are as big and willing to flower as any vulgaris.

The other locality is not that crowded but still the plants offers only one or two, perhaps three flowers to the beholder.

The picture below is from the calcareous island of Gotland in the Baltic sea. As you can see it is a Pulsatilla pratensis ssp pratensis. It is very common on the island and also grows in the southern mainland. Gotland is home of the endemic P vulgaris ssp gotlandica, that someone ( Ian?) mentioned above. ( In Sweden we have P vulgaris and P vernalis and a few P pratensis in the south of the mainland, and P patens in the province of Ångermanland –think center of the length of the country- and island Gotland. And as I just mentioned, P vulgaris ssp gotlandica and P pratensis in the island as well)

The last image is from outside my village, at 175 m a s. There used to be a huge number of plants of P vernalis, but now there are only three plants left. They set viable seeds, but as the moss has become so thick due to the trees grown big and giving dark shadow, the seeds has difficulties to reach the ground. I found it interesting that Olga told me that whenever she has seen P vernalis in Russia it has been happily growing in pine forest.

[Susann]

Ok, something went wrong ( Can not have been me, must have been the the wonder of technology
The picture meant to be the last was added as first instead, so the order is like this:
The first picture that show is the P vernalis locality
The secondis  the dangerous Bull Locality of P vulgaris
The third is  P vulgaris in the not too crowded locality
and finally the P pratensis in the island

Sorry for the mistake...

[peter hood]

Gothenburg Botanical garden has a specimen they claim is P rubra ( I have only seen the true species in pictures) with very finely pinnate leaves, but the flower color is very violet ( light violet). You can see the collection label in the lower left corner. I showed it to curator Henrik Zetterlund and he said it was correctly? In the descriptions it is said to be reddish brown or dull reddish brown? By the way, it is described in Spanish floras as growing there as well.
 

Susann, This plant seems to be the same as my "P.rubra". (above) It is nice to have Gothenburg agree with you. The leaves on your photo seem exactly the same as the leaves on my plant - So I won't have to dig through the snow to look for the dead leaves on mine!
It is interesting that both of us have plants from the same sort of area which do not really agree with the text book description.

In England Pulsatilla vulgaris grows on chalk and Limestone grassland, in places where it never sees the plough; it has become very rare in the last century or so. The places I know of it are: very steep Chalk scarps, Prehistoric earthworks on chalk, and long disused mediaeval Limestone Quarries.

[Susann]

So I won't have to dig through the snow to look for the dead leaves on mine!

I am happy that you did not have to dig in the cold snow. I thought it might look the same. But, do you really think it is correctly namned? I have seen descriptions of P rubra with the adding of `serotina´as if it would be a cultivar? But still, the color of the flowers?! Here are three links with pictures from nature, two from France and one from Spain.
http://www.iberianwildlife.com/picos-europa/wild-flowers-picos-europa.htm
http://crdp.ac-besancon.fr/flore/Ranunculaceae/especes/agrandissement/loupe_pulsatilla_rubra1.htm
http://www.groupemycobotacourslaville.fr/sorties-2011/
 

Change of subject: nobody has spoken about the legendary Pulsatilla integrifolia ( former Miyakea integrifolia), I only showed a picture of my hybrid with P vernalis in the beginning of this thread. Is there not anyone who has beautiful pictures of flowering P intergrifolia? If there is someone who has not come across this stunning plant yet, I show a picture of why it is called "integrifolia".

There is also a short article about the species in IRG some years ago.
http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2010Dec261293381708IRG_12_December.pdf

[Natalia]

Susanna, thanks for the great photos. Colleagues, thank you for the interesting ideas and discussion
Some of my photos of different species Pulsatilla ...

 Pulsatilla patens, wild plants, Voronezh region



Pulsatilla pratensis, Voronezh region

[Natalia]

Pulsatilla taurica_Pulsatilla Halleri, Ukraine, Crimea

[Natalia]

Pulsatilla vernalis, seedling, my garden



Pulsatilla violacea, Caucasus

[Olga Bondareva]

Peter, thank you very much for posting different P. alpina images. The plants look really like different species you are right.

As for P. rubra I have one plant and now I am looking for pictures in my archives. It has red flowers and leaves more finely divided than P. vulgaris.

[Olga Bondareva]

In the descriptions it is said to be reddish brown or dull reddish brown?

That's confusing. If the species is close to P. vulgaris it could hybridize easily. And plants grown from garden seed couldn't be clear.

[Olga Bondareva]

I red Flora of China yesterday ( floras are lovely bed-table books) and was going to add it´s description of the species, but now I skip it if someone does not ask for it? But it also says that kostyczewii does not have staminodes as I believe all other Pulsatillas has?

Dieas Flora of China includes P. kostyczewii? If my memory isn't wrong the species is an endemic of one Kyrgyzstan valley.

[Olga Bondareva]

Olga asked me to show some habitat pictures of P vulgaris.... P pratensis ... P vernalis

Susann, thank you very much for pictures. I remember the story with cows. 
That's very interesting the same species grow sometimes in different conditions.

P. vulgaris and P. vernalis are remained in Russia only in S.-Petersburg area. P. patens also grows there. P. patens grows in light pine forests. P. vernalis lives in dark forests with pines and firs in deep moss.

[Olga Bondareva]

Change of subject: nobody has spoken about the legendary Pulsatilla integrifolia ( former Miyakea integrifolia), I only showed a picture of my hybrid with P vernalis in the beginning of this thread. Is there not anyone who has beautiful pictures of flowering P intergrifolia?

Susann, I can show the picture of flowering plant but plant is not mine. 
The plant is legendary and I have a lot of questions on it. And the first is: where to get seed?