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A wonderful native species that flowers on the cliffs around here at the end of summer. This one was grown from seed, and flowered eighteen months after sowing.
I have tried again and again to establish it in the garden, but I haven't found anywhere warm or dry enough yet, so for the meantime I keep this stock in a pot. Writing about the RHS trial of hardy Hyacinthaceae in The Plantsman, Brian Mathew says: "A common, widespread European/Mediterranean species, usually growing not far from the sea and extremely variable. It may be as small as 5cm in height with a few pale flowers, whereas in its most showy forms it may have up to 20 mid lilac-blue or purple flowers on racemes up to 20cm long. The thread like leaves appear shortly after flowering. The better forms are certainly worthy of cultivation in a sunny well-drained position. In the trial, although the various accessions grew reasonably well, they made little impact and the flowers lasted for only a few days." Wikipedia notes: "Prospero autumnale, the autumn squill, an autumnal flowering plant of the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Scilloideae, is found in the Mediterranean region from Portugal and Morocco east to Turkey and the Caucasus, plus Great Britain. Despite being classified as a single species, it is actually a cryptic species complex, with a variety of cytotypes having been discovered which are phenotypically indistinguishable from each other." |
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| 14th August 2005 | ||
