Fritillaria crassifolia subsp.
kurdica
History
Fritillaria kurdica
was described by Boissier from specimens
collected by Noë near Lake Van
in the late 1840’s.
Friedrich Wilhelm Noë, an Austrian, was born in Berlin
in 1798. In 1844 he settled in Istanbul
and became director of the Botanic Garden of the Êcole
Impériale de Médicine de
Galata Serai. Most of his expeditions were made in the years up to
1854, and he
died in Istanbul
in 1858. The
school at Galataseray, now Galatasaray Lise, was founded by the Sultan
Beyazit
II in the early 16th century, as the palace school for royal pages and
future
administrators of the Ottoman empire,
initially drawn
from the sons of Christian captives, but later including Turkish boys.
Even earlier collections had been made, in
1829, by Johann
Nepomuk Szovits, an Hungarian, who worked as a pharmacist in Odessa;
he made collections in the Caucasus,
Armenia
and Azerbaijan
in 1829 and 1830, and died at Kutaisi
in Georgia
in
1830, though under what circumstances I have been unable to discover.
His
specimens, however survive in the Herbarium in St
Petersburg, and he is remembered
both by a species of Lilium
and a Colchicum.
The combination Fritillaria crassifolia
subsp. kurdica
was
made by the author in 1974 as part of a revision of Fritillaria,
leading up to
the publication of Davis’s Flora of Turkey,
volume 8 (1984).
Recognition
and minor variation
Fritillaria crassifolia
subsp. kurdica
has 5–7 lanceolate,
somewhat glaucous leaves, and usually brown or blackish tessellated
flowers
with a green stripe along the centre of each tepal; its linear nectary
usually
has raised ridges on each side. The ground colour of the flowers varies
and may
be either green or yellowish. In the Van area, where it is particularly
common,
and westwards, the ground colour is generally green; in Hakkari and in
northwest Iran and Azerbaijan,
the ground colour is more often yellow, and the stems are often taller,
and it
is in this area that the plants described as Fritillaria karadaghensis
Turrill
are found. This form was illustrated in Curtis’s Botanical
Magazine t. 9303
(1933).
The plants of subspecies kurdica, grown by
Rod Leeds, which
are illustrated in Curtis’s
Botanical Magazine t. 396 (2000), are a beautiful
pale yellow form which lacks anthocyanin. A similar mutation is known
in
several other species, and produces clones which are much sought after
by
gardeners. So far these yellow forms have been recorded in F. pyrenaica, F.
acmopetala, F.
amana ‘Goksun Gold’, F. michailovskyi, F. rhodocanakis,
and F.
reuteri. Among American species it is found in F. purdyi and F. affinis.
Similar lack of anthocyanin in F.
meleagris and F.
tubiformis produces white
flowers.
Subspecies kurdica
can be distinguished from subsp. crassifolia by its
narrower leaves, and by its
nectarines, which lie in a swollen ridge down the centre of the tepal.
Subspecies hakkarensis differs in
its narrower, shining green leaves, and
smaller, mainly green flowers. F.
graeca Boiss. & Sprun., or at least the
smaller forms of it, can also be similar, but have shorter nectaries,
also
without the raised ridge.
Subspecies,
varieties and synonyms
It
is not surprising that such a variable, widespread and
common plant as subsp. kurdica
should have several synonyms. Fritillaria
karadaghensis Turrill was described from cultivated plants
collected by Egger
on Karadagh in the Tabriz area, and
grown in Tabriz; Turrill himself
acknowledged, after seeing material of subsp. kurdica, that the
two were very
close. F. foliosa
Bornm. was described from the same Egger collection or
another collection by Egger from the same area.
Fritillaria
grossheimiana A. Los.
was described from exactly
the same area, but has dark flowers with a yellow tip. This is very
similar to
garden hybrids between F.
michailovskyi and
subsp. kurdica, and
similar plants were collected in the same area
on Kuh-i-Sahand by Paul and Polly Furse (PF 2333, 2923). It is perhaps
worth
recognising this distinct colour form as f. grossheimiana
(A. Los.) Rix.
Geography,
distribution, habitat and pollination
Fritillaria crassifolia
subsp. kurdica
is found in
south-easternTurkey, Azerbaijan, north-western Iran and northern Iraq.
It generally grows in open
steppe and earthy and stony hills and rock ledges,
usually on north-facing slopes, at 1500–3500m. In
Turkey it grows with a
wonderful range of bulbs which includes Allium akaka, Iris pseudocaucasica,
Iris
sari, Iris
aucheri, Iris
reticulata, Tulipa
violacea, Puschkinia
scilloides, Ranunculus
kochii, Astragalus
species (often dominant), and
elsewhere Eryngium
billardieri, Prangos
spp., Ferula
spp. and other large
Umbelliferae. It is common at 1800–2000m
from Muş eastwards along the
south of Lake Van to Van itself, and from there through Hakkari to Iran
and northern Iraq.
In
Iraq
it has been collected mainly around Haji Umran between Rowandiz and
Mahabad
while in Iran
it is recorded as far south as betwen Marivan and Sanandaj. It appears
especially common around Rezaiyeh and around Tabriz.
In Azerbaijan
it is found both in the Talysh and through Nakhichevan to Armenia
in the hills around Lake
Sevan.
Near Tabriz,
on
the shoulders of Kuh-i-Savalan we collected the following species in
the same
habitat: Scilla
miczenkoana, Iris
reticulata, Tulipa
sp., Colchicum
sp., and a
tuberous Delphinium.
Paul Furse
saw and photographed a queen wasp emerging from a
flower of f. grossheimiana in northern Iran;
this picture is reproduced in Iran Journal of Botany 1 (2):
87(1977). Wasp pollination is common in the
brown and
green flowers of this group in cultivation.
Cultivation
In
cultivation of Fritillaria
crassifolia subspecies kurdica
is not difficult in well-drained sandy soil; the plants should be kept
as cool
as possible, and kept in full sun as soon as they emerge in spring to
retain
their typical dwarf habit; cultivation in a frame is therefore better
than in a
greenhouse. Rich feeding and too much warmth in cultivation produce
leggy and
atypical plants, which collapse at flowering and are susceptible to
botrytis.
Propagation must be by division of the bulbs in summer or by seed.
Fritillaria crassifolia
subsp. kurdica
(Boiss. & Noë)
Rix in Kew Bull. 29:638(1974).
Syn. F.
kurdica Boiss. & Noë in Boiss. Diagn.
ser.
2(4):103(1859).
F. wanensis Freyn
in Bull. Herb. Boiss. ser. 2,1:287(1901).
F. karadaghensis
Turrill in Gard. Chron. ser. 3,
85:242(1929).
F. foliosa Bornm.
in Feddes Repert. Sp. Nov. 27:338(1930).
F. grossheimiana A.
Los. in Komarov, Fl. U.R.S.S. (addendum
3) 739(1935).
Bulb to 3cm across, usually without
bulbils. Stem
3–10cm. Leaves
usually 5–6, lanceolate or
linear-lanceolate, the lowest 3–5cm x 6–15mm,
3–5 times as long as wide, all
alternate, glaucous. Flowers usually 1 or 2, rarely to 4, broadly
campanulate,
yellowish or green, usually tessellated and stippled with brown or
purple, with
fascia, with a spermatic scent. Tepals 1.7–2.0cm, the outer
5–8mm wide, the
inner 8–12mm wide, obtuse. Nectaries often blackish at the
base, linear, 8–10mm
long, 1mm wide, 3–5mm above the tepal base, on a raised
ridge. Filaments 5–7mm,
papillose; style
5–8mm, the branches
3–4mm, slender, smooth.
Capsule not
winged, rounded or shortly cylindrical, tapering towards the base.
South-eastern Turkey, Azerbaijan,
north-western Iran and
northern Iraq, growing on rocky slopes and earthy steppes at
1500–3500 m,
flowering from April to July, but mostly in May.
Type:
Turkey: in subalpinis prope Van, Noë
5 (G.).
Extract
from Martyn Rix’s forthcoming Monograph.
©2008
Martyn Rix
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