Description
This is a clonal selection, segregated here from just one seedling of an intentional cross which I made here some years ago between two very good garden plants. This hybrid was made and selected a few years later than its sister seedling Natalie. It was made using Erythronium revolutum Johnsonii pollen onto Erythronium californicum White Beauty as the female parent.
E. r. Johnsonii was chosen as a parent for its darker, more interestingly marbled foliage. E. Sylvie inherits and perhaps even enhances this superb dark foliage which is noticeably at its best at flowering time (which is a touch later than most Erythronium here), providing a superb contrast to the white flowers. In the bud these are shaded externally with pink-fawn, however this fades in the mature flower. These are borne several to a spike in April and have broad white petals, broader in fact than either parent. The throat is contrasted with a faint rust-red ring, from californicum, surrounded by and overlaid by a yellow zone, from revolutum. The style is much more in the form of revolutum, with its deep, trifid divisions.
In effect this is a much improved and superior White Beauty. It is broader-petalled with better colour, more flowers per stem and far better foliage. The two flowers are compared in one of our gallery shots.
Not yet offered commercially and not yet available. This entry in our shop (May 2021) is for reference only at this time, though you are, of course, welcome to join the waitlist.
