Description
(Endymion cedretorum, E. kabylicus, E. patulus var. algeriensis, Hyacinthoides kabylica, Scilla kabylica and a few other combinations of these genus names and species names)
Hyacinthoides cedretorum is a very distinctive in appearance with strongly revolute tepals to which the filaments are fused (to less than a quarter of the tepal’s length). There are no differences between the inner and outer tepals in this respect. The filaments are sub-equal in length. The flowers are borne in spikes over the still- green foliage. They are bright blue, with blue ovaries and anthers of either navy or, rarely, yellow. Plants from the High-Atlas, where it grows on open, but sheltered rock ledges, have larger growth, paler flowers, less reflexed tepals and in some populations creamy-yellow anthers and pollen. Our plants do have these though normally the anthers and pollen are dark purplish-blue.
H. cedretorum is still very rare in cultivation, indeed you may not even have heard of it. It is a high-altitude, sub-alpine plant widely, but sparsely, distributed along the mountain chains of North Africa, where it grows from 1,400 to 2,700m, usually under Cedars or Firs. It is found from n.e. Algeria through the Rif of Morocco, (where it has recently been re-discovered) and on south through the Atlas Mountains. Plant have been examined from Moroccan populations and appear, uniquely within the genus, to be tetraploid (n = 16).
Growth is not difficult in a well-drained, loam-based compost and we have no hardiness problems here with alpine house pot cultivation. Though we have not been growing the species long enough to really test it outside in harsher conditions we believe that others already have.
