Colchicums

It’s that time of year again–colchicum season. I thought that this year, in addition to talking about my new acquisitions, I would try to focus on the ones I didn’t get around to posting on last year, and avoid deluging you with photos unless they were clearly better than last year’s. And having thus firmly [...]

Colchicum ‘Harlequin’ is apparently new enough that only Odyssey Bulbs, from whom I bought it, has any information on it: “With their pointed, twisted, creamy-white segments, blotched irregularly with purple toward their bases, the flowers (borne in September) of this aptly named and utterly distinctive cultivar really do give the impression of a jester’s hat [...]

According to John Bryan in Bulbs, “the plant usually grown under this name is a form of C. speciosum with yellow anthers.” Elsewhere he also says it has a white throat. I’ve looked at the photo of the “true” C. bornmuelleri, and I definitely have the impostor. It has yellow anthers and a white throat, [...]

I think of these colchicums as triplets because, even thought they are supposed to be three distinct plants, I can’t tell them apart. In the photos they appear to have more difference in color than they do in real life. The supposed ‘Album’ is in shade when the other two are in sunlight, so I [...]

These were the next two to bloom after ‘Autumn Queen’. ‘Violet Queen’ I’ve had for a while. According to E. A. Bowles in Crocus & Colchicum, which is considered to be the definitive book on colchicums, ‘Violet Queen’ “has long pointed segments closely tesselated [that means checkered] on a bluish lilac ground contrasting pleasantly with [...]