Fritillaria 'Lentune Malachite'
F. whittallii x grandiflora
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The result of pollinating Fritillaria whittallii with Fritillaria grandiflora.
The seed was sown in September 2007 and this clone was separated out in 2016.
The sowing resulted in a very good germination and when they first flowered showed a complete range from those with strong leanings towards the seed parent to those where the pollen parent had made a very significant contribution to the flower colour and shape.
Whilst the flowers of this seedling are intermediate between the seed parent and the putative pollen parent, the seed parent is contributing by far the greatest influence. So I'm not entirely confident of my success with the intended pollen parent - bearing in mind that wasps can easily intervene in the pollination process to spoil my intentions!
In my own experience, F. whittallii is not the easiest Fritillaria to please and F. grandiflora blood would add a measure of robustness to F. 'Lentune Malachite'. Only time will tell!
This is a sister plant of 'Lentune Waxwing'
Seed parent(F. whittallii)
The seed parent for 'Malachite' was my favoured clone from a sowing of F. whittallii seed received from the Scottish Rock Garden Club's seed exchange in 2001 (coincidentally the same date as the pollen parent!).
Pollen parent(F. grandiflora)
Grown from seed given to me by Dieter Zschummel (Germany) and tracing back to Kiev Botanic Garden in Ukraine. NB I've seen plants from this stock mistakenly labelled as originating from Kew Botanic Gardens. Dieter labelled it Kiew since this is the German spelling for Kiev, and so it's easy to see how the mistake has occurred!
The seed was sown in 2001 and this photo was taken in 2008.
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