Description
This is a clone, raised from a single plant found in seedlings of Corydalis vittae Goliath. It is thought to be a hybrid of Goliath with one of the very deep red clones of C. solida. When these two are planted together or close, they produce very occasional hybrids. The crossing does not happen very often but when it does the offspring almost invariably have the foliage characters of C. solida but, perhaps surprisingly, they are usually, or always, white-flowered, thus taking after the vittae parent in this respect.
C. vittae Nephilim is unusual in that the upper crest of the petal of the otherwise white bloom is suffused with a little violet, from its C. solida parent. It is however every bit as gigantic as its seed parent Goliath (I have carefully avoided calling Goliath “mother”) .
These two clones, Goliath and Nephilim, are the largest flowers in the genus Corydalis and they are very impressive plants indeed.
Garden spot, in light or partial shade and fully hardy here.
New to our lists August 2017.
(the picture incidentally, does nothing to really illustrate the large size and scale of this plant)
