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?