Blown away and blown up by hardy Gesneriads (and a little Olympic digression...)

Ramonda serbica

Gesneriads are one of those hot-button families of plants that have spawned their own societies and generate a sort of buzz. I am old enough to remember when African Violets were still a bit of a novelty (I had a long, complex and treasured relationship with Muriel Milsted, a great English gardener who lived most of her life in Illinois--and who wrote one of the first books about them: African Violets for the Home)...but I digress. This is just one of a number of hardy gesneriads that has settled nicely into my garden. I might even live long enough to see it in the wild. It's on my "bucket list". My relationship with hardy gesneriads (as with most things) is long and a bit strange...as you'll discover if you read through this post. But I think pretty compelling...

Haberlea rhodopensis in the Rock Alpine Garden, DBG

Somewhere I still have transparencies of this Balkan gesneriad many times this size smothered in flowers at Denver Botanic Gardens. We still have it--in fact I have a number of clumps (4? 5?) in my shady rock garden getting fatter each year. We shouldn't really be trying to grow these things on our silly steppe climate--they do need a bit of coddling (shade, and fairly regular irrigation--about as much as bluegrass probably). But they are pretty tough: in nature these can go through months of drought--curling up into tight balls. Don't try this at home!

Campanula oreadum

No, this is not a gesneriad: but it is a choice endemic of Mount Olympus (the one in Thessaly: there are dozens of Mt. Olympuses, by the way). I spent several fateful days in mid July of 2015 climbing this mountain--partly in search of the very choice Jankaea heldreichii only found there--one of the choicest alpine plants (and of course a gesneriad) on the planet (most rock gardeners would agree). I got a number of pictures of other treasures, like this gem I've not shared before--which often has 8 petaloid segments rather than the more conventional five lobes seen here.

Allium olympicum

Another endemic--which rankles a bit. I obtained seed of this from an exchange, it germinated and then I somehow fumbled and lost it before I could plant it in the garden sniff...

Viola delphinantha

Not as narrowly endemic to Olympus, this stunning chasmophyte was a high point of the very long hike (and fateful day: I hadn't anticipated the toll the trail would take on my feet: it's taken years to restore them!)

This shows the stark habitat even better...

Antonioni's classic 1966 film

I realize this may seem like a  s..t...r..e..t..c..h, but my experience with the greatest gesneriads recapitulates (or perhaps better put, parodies) the plot line of this classic film. Both of my cameras acted up on Mount Olympus (I didn't have my I-Phone then). I was so rattled I apparently forgot to photograph the many rosettes of Jankaea heldreichii we passed climbing the mountain. It has a colossal altitudinal range--and all the lower elevation plants had finished blooming: no chance to get closeups like I did of the Violet (and a lot of other gems--surely I must have blogged about it? Must check)

Jankaea heldreichii

On our third day on the mountain, on our hurried descent we spied this clump just below the Refuge growing perhaps 100 feet away on an utterly inaccessible cliff. If we'd 1) had time [we didn't: we had the whole mountain to descend] 2) no fear of dying perhaps I could have gotten a bit closer. But instead, I steadied my camera and zoomed in as far as I dared and got this one heroic, tragic, lonely picture of a spectacular clump. Will I ever return to Olimbos? If you hadn't yet made the connection to the movie--I had to blow this picture up a LOT to share it. There was an even more uncanny movie parallel with Jankaea's Himalayan cousin, as you'll soon see...

I wouldn't be surprised if Forrest photographed this at one of several locations where I have found it north of Lijiang on the Yulongshan. I first saw this picture in Sampson Clay's monumental The Present Day Rock Garden about the time I saw Antonioni's somewhat annoying masterpiece. We're talking 56 years ago.  The original image in the book isn't much better than my photo of it--but it was good enough that I was stunned by the beauty of the woolly leaves. Would I ever see this plant in my lifetime? Indeed I did--in 1997 when my boss at the time (Jim Henrich who is now at the Los Angeles Botanic Garden) went on a Sister Cities tour to China. We rented a car for a day and drove up to Gang-He Ba pass. When the terrain became subalpine we stopped at the first cliffs, and this "Didissandra" (now Corallodiscus lanuginosus) was plastered all over the limestone cliffs--very much as Jankaea is on Olimbos! I remember thinking "this will be a challenge to grow" and then I saw that it carpeted the turfy ground (dotted with Potentilla fruticosa) making a virtual carpet. Perhaps not so fussy after all! Why is this plant not in cultivation?

Corallodiscus lanuginosus

Flash forward to 2018 when I led a tour of a dozen or so members of the North American Rock Garden Society. We spent a magical day near Zhongdian (now absurdly called "Shangrila") visiting Napahai--a fantastic area near a large lake surrounded by floral treasure, I have shared a tiny portion of the treasures from that trip on another blog post, but I had not yet "blown up" this picture to reveal something unexpected.

Corallodiscus kingii

I took this picture in Sikkim (where we were lucky to find another species in the genus in full bloom in late June)--although we've seen this species a number of places in China as well. I believe  that Harry Jan's picture of "lanuginosus" on the Alpine Garden Society more closely resembles this species--or perhaps an intermediate--than the true lanuginosus. What do you think?

The earlier closeup of our Napahai plant was extracted from this--a wider shot. Considering that this is a plant I've been yearning to see in bloom (or perhaps in seed, or better yet, in my garden) for over half a century, it is a bit odd that I took so few pictures of it. And this was my best (and not a very good one I fear...). But when I "blew it up" (I edited this shot a tad) I suddenly realized I'd photographed another plant on my "bucket list"--which I believe is a Sinocrassula. With its slightly toothed margins it is utterly distinct from the two (tender) species in that genus currently in cultivation.

Sinocrassula sp.?

 

 The Flora of China records six species in this genus in the Himalaya. I can't imagine anything else it could be. And to think I was staring practically at it. Not quite as stark a coincidence as the corpse the protagonist sees when blowing up his image--only mine isn't fictional!

 

Incidentally, part of the impetus of this article was finding that quite a few packets of seed of Corallodiscus lanuginosus had been donated to the NARGS seed exchange by Vojtech Holubec collected in Tibet (our chapter is doing Phase 3 of this remarkable exchange). Perhaps it will one day show up in our gardens?

A sprig of yarrow for remembrance

Snowcapped Achillea filipendulina (01-05-2017)

If I hadn't removed this sizeable clump of a common, summer-blooming yarrow from this spot (I still grow it elsewhere) it would probably look pretty much like this today--after our first snow in a long time...funny to think I took that picture almost precisely seven years ago today. Yarrows are not the most glamorous of plants. But they possess many layers of meaning and significance for me--our gardens are microcosms of the World, but also macrocosms of our souls...and this post (one I think you'll like if you hang in there),,,

Achillea millefolium on Steptoe Butte, Washington (08-01-2012)

I grew up calling this taxon Achillea lanulosa--I am not sure who lumped our Universal American yarrow with the Universal Eurasian species. I took this picture on an enchanted trip to Spokane where I spoke to the "Inland Empire Garden Club" whose amazing leaders retired a few weeks ago--a sort of adumbration of other losses. Just wait. I glossed over this trip far too briefly on another blog post...Check out its range below (from BONAP)

Achillea "millefolium" range

Don't you feel a tad sorry for those counties in the deep South where common yarrow's not been found yet. Or the spotty dark green band creeping up through the High Plains (bet we could find it in most of those counties). Still--not many North American wildflowers have this extensive a range (that I can think of)...I have a hunch we could find it in a lot of those counties pretty easily if we'd tried. I could go on and on about this (and far too many other things I know) but wanted to let you know that our yarrow's cousin is just as widespread in Eurasia:

https://agroatlas.ru/en/content/weeds/Achillea_millefolium/map/index.html

I found this map on the web from a Russian website devoted to weeds: they regard the Holarctic A. millefolium to be a an agricultural pest. As you cam see the "area of distribution" dwarfs the range of our native form in terms of acreage. 

 

Drama in the capitate head of Achillea filipendulina photographed May 21, 2023 on the South side of Zeravshan Pass, Uzbekistan

Returning for a moment to the yellow yarrow I'd launched this post with, here's a picture I took of a typical plant in Central Asia (I've seen it in Kazakhstan and the Caucasus as well). I suspect it has almost as big a range in Eurasia as its white flowered cousin! In fact, it's beginning to spread a tad on OUR hemisphere as well...

Achillea filipendilina in the Continental U.S.A. (BONAP)

Somewhere in my voluminous slide files I have pictures of where this striking yarrow has naturalized liberally on the road verge off Interstate 70 on the "El Rancho" exit towards Evergreen--hundreds of spectacular clumps glow in the summer light if they haven't been upprooted by zealous nativists. I find both these yarrows to be rather thuggish in the garden--and it's obvious lots of people regard them as weeds--but they're sold by the million all over the world. I'd categorize them as more ruderal than rude...

Achillea ageratifolia on "Nexus Berm" 05-29-2017

There are only two species of Achillea native to North America, but the Mediterranean and Western Asia are chockablock full of fantastic yarrows--I've grown dozens, almost all of which are garden worthy. There are especially a bevy of tiny species perfect for rock gardens--with wonderful almost succulent leaves and flowers over a long season. Let me praise just one of these: "Greek Yarrow" (Achillea ageratifolia) is commonly grown and sold by Denver area nurseries. For a few years it had a grandstand presence on the Nexus berm at Denver Botanic Gardens...

Nexus berm on June 9, 2022

A quick flash forward--the berm has been pretty drastically transformed. I sometimes wonder about the yarrow that was removed: it could have probably been propagated to produce a few million plants...

I have quite a few more yarrows I could upload and tales to tell about them. I shall restrain myself with one last image of a yarrow in the wild.

Aricia artaxerxes pollinating Achillea ageratifolia on Mt. Olimbos, Greece July 16, 2015

Achillea ageratifolia  on Olimbos has single heads as opposed to the clustered creature common in our nurseries. There is a special meaning to finding Achillea in Thessaly: the genus was named for Achilles, who was the King of Thessaly, after all. I read somewhere that it has special use for binding wounds--       which would have been very useful for that warlike hero I admired so much as a child.                                         

Peter Yarrow
        

The soundtrack of my youth consisted of a lot of different strains--always Classical music (Baroque especially), a lot of Greek "folk music" (laika) which reached its apogee in the sixties and seventies and especially American folk music. I cannot imagine how many hours I listened to Peter, Paul and Mary. I'm sure I had all their albums at one time, and can't imagine how many times I put them on and off the record player. I heard them twice in concert--one wonderful day in the 1970's at Red Rocks thanks to my sister Mary (Callas Taylor). And once a few years before Mary (Travers) passed away when they performed at Denver Botanic Gardens. I was with my children--who were charmed by the music: "why don't you ever play the at home, dad?" one of them asked. 

Of course I would have been playing them all along as my children grew up if vinyl hadn't been usurped by various kinds of "tapes" and then those were replaced by "CD's" and now it's a complete muddle. I do play them on Spotify or Pandora from time to time--but my kids are in their 30's.

And Paul passed away on Tuesday. Don't think twice, it's all right. The answer is blowing in the wind. When will they ever learn. I'm flying on a Jet Plane. Don't laugh at me, please.

                                                                                                           

Panayoti on the Road Again! California here I come!

California Lecture Tour

  Tuesday Jan. 21

 (meeting starts at 7 pm at the County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park) 

San Francisco Cactus club: “The OTHER South Africa” 

More information HERE

 Succulent lovers are so smitten with the extraordinary biodiversity of the Western Cape that they often neglect to visit the eastern parts of South Africa. I hope to show how wrong this is. The great bulk of plants most often seen in Temperate Gardens from South Africa grow mostly in the Eastern parts of the country: Agapanthus, Watsonia, Crocosmia and no end of Kniphofia are found primarily in Eastern South Africa. Many genera of Succulents (including Gasteria and many Haworthia, Bergeranthus and more are far commoner and more diverse as you travel East in the country. For this reason often receives most of its moisture in the summer--which often means the flower season is protracted, or often in late summer. 

Alice Eastwood

  Saturday January 25 10:30 AM

 Wayne Roderick Lecture Series “The Colorado/California Connection” 

Regional Parks Botanical Garden ("Tilden")

A surprising number of great California botanists (not just Alice Eastwood!) launched their careers in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. It’s about time to shine a light on our historical connection Click here for more information: Colorado/California connection 

Vignette from Namaqualand during Superbloom

 Saturday January 25 3-4 PM (sign-up required)

"Superbloom" "Trifecta! Three Superb bloom years in South Africa" 

Ruth Bancroft Garden

Most gardeners are aware that South Africa contains extraordinary plant diversity: approximately a tenth of the World's vascular plant flora grows natively in South Africa. The South and Western parts of the Cape are especially rich in succulents (and bulbs!) however this area was subjected to great drought stress thus far this century. Until 2022, that is, when heavy winter rains resulted in a fantastic display of annuals, bulbs, perennials and succulents we call a "Super bloom"...I was so smitten that I returned in 2023 and again in 2024--just a few months ago. Each year seemed to outdo the previous one. Seeing is believing--the technicolor audacity of Namaqualand super bloom must be seen to be believed! It was superb! (Click on "Superbloom" above (or here) for more details on this talk.

  Monday, January 27 Sacramento Cactus Club 

“Superbloom in South Africa” reprise.

 Click here for more information: Superbloom! Shepherd Garden and Art Center, 3330 McKinley Park Blvd. Sacramento, CA The doors open at 6:15 for socialization and plant purchases with the program beginning at 7pm.

Summer seasoning

Surely I'm not the only person who, in the heat of summer, phantasizes about a cool winter's day. On January 1 in Denver, we can hardly say we've had TOO much of a winter--daytime temperatures for months now have been balmy enough so I've left my jacket in my office when returning home. Why, then, am I yearning for a toasty summer day?

Lilies for me epitomize summer: we are so lucky thus far to have escaped the plague of Lily beetle, so I have indulged in my love of these elegant spires. This album features various "Martagon" hybrids with fancy cultivar names I have jumbled. They're ridiculously inexpensive--I keep adding more each year...

I have a dear friend, who will remain anonymous, with impeccable taste in most things. But Bill hates lilies. There is no accounting for taste is all Ihave to say...

I suspect this has some Liliium tenuifolium in it.

 I've lived long enough that I remember lilies like this being sold as "Bellingham hybrids" often under the rubric of "Lilium x Marhansonii":I can definitely see some Lilium hansonii in this one.

I believe this is the same plant as the last, photographed last year--how different each lily looks in various lights and angles.

This nearly purple-black one hardly shows up in the garden from a distance--but it's one of my favorites nonetheless...

Wouldn't you know, Winter's hardly arrived and I'm yearning for a hot summer's day: such is the perversity of the human spirit!

Happy New Year!

Season's greetings from a lost book...

Castilleja rhexifolia by Esther Reed

 Not altogether lost yet--more like in limbo. This rather gorgeous watercolor is one of dozens residing (today) on my desk at work. They deserve (and will certainly) get better treatment...but first I must mourn books that I have lost....

I know, with a library of around 5000 books I shouldn't be pained by the half dozen that got away--mostly due to my own stupidity. Eventually, who knows what will happen to my precious little library...I can imagine several scenarios:

1)    If I died tomorrow, my children would inherit it (of course) and if they were smart they'd secrete the fifty or so books that have real value and sell them through Abebooks. I should do a list of these for them. And sell the rest to a book dealer for peanuts. A lifetime's book collecting might make some second hand book dealer a few thousand--or likely tens of thousands--of bucks. They deserve it for all the work!

2)    If I live long and comfortably enough I might donate it to a worthy place. Not naming names--but I have a short list. A very short list.

3)    If Social Security is gutted by the Billionaire bastards, I may have to sell them as well: how could 77 million fellow Americans be so mentally challenged? My one bitter consolation is that they are apt to suffer more over the next few years than those of us who voted blue.

Rhodiola rhodantha (left) and R. rosea var. integrifolia on the right

By the way, Esther didn't use either of these names in labeling this watercolor. Getting back to my litany--SOMEone, and it had to be a "friend", stole my leather-bound volume of the complete works of Antonio Machado I purchased in Spain when I was 20 years old and treasured. Maybe they "borrowed it" (I don't think I would have leant it) and "forgot" to return it...either way, I hope they reside uncomfortably in Dante's ninth ring of hell alongside all the Cabinet Picks of the regime to come. I'm sorry to be so uncharitable in this Holiday season--but some things are beyond the pale of decency....

Here's the back of the second painting: it hints at the enormous effort  and conscientious work Esther did to produce a book that died in the womb (so to speak). Although perhaps it will have a second life. By the way, I Googled her name: I don't believe she's alive. I can only imagine what she'd think that the home she lived in is valued by Zillow at $1.5 million dollars (I think she likely paid about 1% of that for it originally). Speak about beyond the pale...The world is seriously out of whack when property values explode like that in a lifetime--not to mention the sick body politic.

Copy of today's Zillow evaluation of Esther's former home

More losses: I loaned a first edition William Robinson to Andy Knauer in the seventies. I am quite sure Andy is not alive--a man I liked very much and resent that when I think him I think of my book. Ditto the third volume (with the best of his poetry) of Kostas Varnalis--loaned to Pantelis (whom I've lost contact with including his surname). A beautifully bound trilogy is now incomplete--a precious gift to me from my late uncle Antoni Kornaraki when I was 17. 

Hymenoxys grandiflora and Tetraneuris acaulis (var. caespitosa?)

You should see the synonyms on the back of THIS painting...perhaps I should have scanned them...

In the spinning nearly infinite scope of the Multiverse, a few books lost (my list could have gone on) a few books that never found themselves a publisher (I know of a half dozen more just as sad as this one--don't get me started) are trifles. The Universe ignores the destruction of the Library of Alexandria by  Caliph Omar in 640 A.D. or the Mongol destruction of Baghdad in 1258 which held literary treasures perhaps even exceeding Alexandria's (and incidentally marked the  terminus of Muslim enlightenment).

At any rate a book, sitting on my desk which was entrusted to my brother-in-law possibly decades ago and passed on to me by his children is sitting on my desk for now.

                                                                 Merry Christmas!

Feelin' the Blues (Yellowstone, Part two)

Penstemon cyaneus

 In the course of my life I've grown no end of penstemons: not merely dozens of species and hybrids--I'll bet I've grown nearly a hundred. But it wasn't till this past summer I encountered one of the most dazzling. Penstemon cyaneus has a rather large range in the Middle Rockies, as you can see below.

I've criss-crossed that region more times than I can think of, but this is the first time I found a mother-load of this wonderful taxon. Now...to get seed and GROW it! I know there are a lot of pictures of this...but how do you pick?

P. cyaneus next to the asphalt

Here next to Lake Yellowstone

Now which ones would YOU have weeded out. Our trip to Northern Wyoming over the 4th of July this past summer was a wonderful re-visit (I've done it a dozen times--maybe more)--each time I find something new...

2024 was eventful in terms of travel: the paramo of Ecuador, cloud forest nearby and the Galapagos in January. Early spring in California with Fritillaria affinis and so much more in abundance, Superbloom in the Hill Country of Texas, my third year of Superbloom in South Africa...almost forgot England and Armenia in May...

But sometimes you find something every bit as dazzling close to home: do join me next June for the AGM of the North American Rock Garden Society in Cheyenne: it is going to be amazing!

Wyoming wandering: part one--buckwheat bother

Eriogonum umbellatum ssp. majus

What's the bother with buckwheats? We'll get to that but first admire if you will the wonderful changing color on the perianth segments of this specimen--soon the whole umbel will be rose. I grew up calling this Eriogonum subalpinum (which it remains in my heart). This was classed as a subspecies of the common--almost always yellow--species because they supposedly intergrade. I did not find any evidence of this in Yellowstone National Park last July....as you will see.

Eriogonum umbellatum ssp. majus

 Yampa River Botanic Park contains a spectacular mass planting of this--one of our most abundant and wonderful groundcovers practically restricted to the Rocky Mountain subalpine zone (hence the very appropriate epithet). The white flowers when fresh are blindingly white.

Eriogonum umbellatum ssp. umbellatum

Three yellow flowered subspecies or varieties of the common buckwheat are found in Yellowstone National park: one, with hairy white leaves is endemic and very rare there (not pictured here). I believe this is the type form of the species--looking quite robust. Believe it or not--the last two pictures were taken a stone's throw from one another...

TWO different subspecies TOGETHER!

Here you can see a big sweep of  var. majus in front and a mass of var. umbellatum in the distance. I did not find any hybrids or evidence of introgression here. Methinks they shouldn't be lumped into one species...just sayin'...

Here you see a yellow form of umbellatum within an easy bee's flight of a mass of variety majus...

Eriogonum umbellatum ssp. umbellatum

I personally would prefer to raise var. majus back to E. subalpinum...hoping some gene jockey will be able to distinguish them enough soon. 

In whatever flavor, these (and a hundred other) buckwheats light up the midsummer mountains, and increasingly our gardens. There are dozens of subspecies of E. umbellatum: I am gratified that var. aureum collected by Dermod Downs on Kannah Creek near Grand Junction has become a popular Plamt Select introduction (incidentally, something I had something to do with in the misty long forgotten past)....now let's get 'majus' (in whatever scientific name) in that program too, please...