Description
A recently described species from Hakkari Province in the very south east of Turkey and adjacent Iran, where it grows at the edge of snow at up to 6,000 ft. Though discovered in 1974 by Hasan Peşmen it was not named until 2007.
The species is now known to be more variable than was first thought from its initial, single collection (this Rix.1926 collection) however the Rix collection is unique in its greenish flowers and the flowers open when the leaves are well developed (not with them as in scilloides). There are 2-15 flowers borne on short pedicels, in a loose spike. The six anther filaments fuse at their base to form a vestigial cup.
I have seen the name used for more bluish forms, which look transitional to P. scilloides in both colour and in other features and this, it seems, indicates the greater variability of the species than was first thought. However our bulbs are vegetatively propagated from the very type accession collected by Martyn Rix (Rix.1926) and illustrated in his ‘The Bulb Book’. They are green flowered, pure, unhybridised and 100% correctly named and true.
It is green-flowered and so is not the showiest Puschkinia, though its unique greenish colour is an oddity which enthrals me and it is surprisingly conspicuous in the frames here, when it finally appears above ground. It emerges very late in spring, just after you think it has died, in April, to flower in the last days of April on on into May. Sunny spot or a pot, good drainage, cool or cold in winter (not frozen) dry summer rest.
First offered in our list September 2013
