Description
I first encountered this plant in the 1970’s in Argolis, Greece, at which time it was undescribed botanically and despite the appearance of the plants that we found F. rhodocanakis was stated not to occur on the Greek mainland, only on the island of Hydra. In time it seems to have been accepted that the earlier “facts” were quite wrong. Google maps reveals that our original wild site has now been ploughed and is producing olives.
This subspecies (or at least our form of it) has larger flowers than the type subspecies (F. rhodocanakis subsp. rhodocanakis). It has flowers which are strongly marked with garnet at the base with a yellow stripe across the mouth, however the bell has faint chequering on the garnet and the shape of the bells differs from the type, being both wider and more square to lend a slightly different appearance. Thoiught thisis to a degree intermediate with F. graeca, the suggestion that this is a stabilised form of a cross between F. rhodocanakis and F. graeca is a step too far I think. My own experiences with this is the wild and with F. graeca make me think that they are so very widely separated ecologically (as well as in altitude) that it would take a very determined bee to effect the cross.
Despite its rarity cultivation isn’t difficult, treated as most other Mediterranean Fritillaria. These are seed-raised, in cultivation from a Michael Neuman seed collection made on Greece, on Mt Didimo, on the Peloponnese. We find that this form does not produce as many offsets as the type subspecies.
