PUSHING THE BORDERS

Or these guys have them at 50 quid a pop :o
https://www.kelways.co.uk/ferula-commun ... uca/p47564
20ltr, but still seems a little excessive for a plant that may or may not be perennial. :D
Your chance to clean up Paul.

That is ridiculous.

I’ve read the same reports of this plant being potentially monocarpic, but that hasn’t been my experience here; it regrows each spring without fail. I have had them seed around a bit in years I didn’t remove ripening seed.

Flowering today at around 9ft in total. Interesting that each umbel has 3 little subsidiary ones, too. A bit like moons. :)





Edit. If you zoom in bottom left you can see Cynara cardunculus subsp flavescens just about to flower, too. I'll post that when it does - cracking plant!

Please save some seed!

There were some seedlings of, nominally, the same taxon at The Tregrehan sale, but they had no hint of redness.

I want to grow some and then do several generations of selections for redness.

How many years from seed to flower?

Chad

I aim to save as much seed as is set and then do much the same - select for colour. I bought 3 plants as 9cm liners, which I'd guess were in their second year or maybe pampered one year old plants. 3 years on 2 of them are flowering - and only this one is showing especially glaucous foliage, tinged maroon when emerging as shown earlier in the year. The other flowering plant is much, much smaller - 5ft maybe, and although it does have a colourful stem the leaves are nowhere near as glaucous (though more glaucous than the 'regular' form I grow elsewhere. The third plant is smaller still, with the less impressive leaf colour. So, yes, the game plan is keep selecting the best colour forms.

Did they set seed?

Chad

Yes! Just fattening up at the moment. :)

Excellent.

Please can you keep an eye open for where in the flower stalk the seed is set.

As part of the reading around for Dominic's possible hybrid Daucus, I came across an enigmatic comment that Ferula has single sex flowers. I'm not sure if it is accurate, but then I found an observation that it only set seed on the 'big' terminal umbels, implying [or I'm leaping too far] that the smaller lateral umbels are male. And from another source, that male flowers are round the edge of the umbels.

I haven't found a good 'botanical' description on-line, nor a modern monograph. And despite my protestations that Apiaceae hybrids are rare, they seem to be quite common in the Ferula of Asia Minor which complicates their taxonomy.

And don't get me started on the 'true' identity of Ferula 'Cedric Morris'...

Chad

Update to this topic. To recap I planted 3 of these, two of which flowered - one of those was significantly more glaucous and generally more colourful, especially the new growth and flower stalk. It was also full-sized, reaching over 2.5m tall. The one that didn't flower was quite green all season.

Well, this year all three have sprouted, including the ones that flowered last year (so now hopefully perennial). And to my pleasant surprise they are all showing the same colourful new growth, fading to a good glaucous haze, as per last year's picture.