Monday, August 10, 2015

Lycoris in the hands of our lycoris king


Jim Dronenburg with some of his lycorises; photo Anne Mazaitis


Lycorises: the ones with broad, unruffled  tepals and pale yellow color might be hybrids of L. longituba and L. chinensis; photo Anne Mazaitis  

Lycorises: the big white one is Lycoris longituba, the one in the middle with the blue streak is L. sprengeri; photo Anne Mazaitis

Last weekend our local chapter, the Potomac Valley Chapter, of the North American Rock Garden Society held a meeting to give members a chance to show slides. I was out of town for a family reunion, but the images here will show what I missed. Thanks to Anne Mazaitis for having the presence of mind to get some pictures.  Chapter president Jim Dronenburg arrived with a stunning show and tell: in the first image above, that's Jim with a selection of the lycorises blooming in his garden now. If you look carefully, you can see Lycoris longituba (big white), L. sanguinea (orange, small), L. chinensis (yellow), L. sprengeri (pink with a conspicuous blue flash), L. × squamigera, maybe a longituba-chinensis hybrid (light yellow with broad, un-ruffled tepals). Have I named them all?
Jim has been collecting lycorises for years and has written about lycorises for Washington Gardener Magazine. 
We have two members who have been collecting lycorises avidly for years. Jim is the king of our chapter lycoris growers. I'll try to have something about the queen later this week.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Fabulous picture of Jim and his flowers!