LILIES - RHS Lily Group
LILIES - RHS Lily Group
LILIES - RHS Lily Group
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Above, Erythronium propullans. The flowers of<br />
this rare species from Minnesota are usually less<br />
than 1cm long. Above right, a leaf of E. revolutum<br />
showing the mottled pattern confined to the<br />
area between the main veins. Right, a leaf of E. dens-canis showing the random<br />
pattern of mottling, cutting across veins.<br />
recognition is justified but it is certainly distinct as a horticultural subject. Another<br />
Californian species is among those I rate highly: E. helenae. Again it is not unlike<br />
E. californicum with white flowers and mottled leaves but here the flowers have<br />
a large yellow zone in the centre and the stamens (anthers) are yellow (white in<br />
E. californicum). This is named after Mount St Helena, not Washington State’s<br />
Mount St Helens which blew its top so spectacularly in 1980.<br />
Eurasian and eastern North-American species<br />
The Eurasian species are, of course, delightful garden plants although less<br />
spectacular than the western American ones. But of course E. dens-canis does<br />
have an AGM, awarded to the species as a whole. I find that the bulbs of the<br />
named commercial clones tend to split up and form non-flowering clumps so it<br />
is necessary to try to counteract this by digging them up frequently and feeding<br />
with a potash-rich (e.g. rose) fertilizer. Plants from wild stocks or seeds tend to<br />
flower much more freely but the rate of increase is slower. To collect seeds one<br />
has to move fairly quickly for, as with Galanthus, Sternbergia and Cyclamen, the<br />
seed pods touch the ground and ants will soon remove the contents, attracted<br />
by a fleshy appendage or (in the case of Cyclamen) a sugary coat. Interestingly<br />
the Eurasian and eastern North American species of Erythronium behave in this<br />
way but the western ones all have upright capsules whose seeds are distributed<br />
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