Wood anemone and relatives

[RickR]

My first plants of Anemone rivularis (from seed) bloomed in 2009 with some rather wimpy, but nicely colored white flowers with purple-blue tinted petal backs.  The 2010 spring was rather warm, but with ample rainfall.  Anemone rivularis shot up strong 12+ inch stems in pots and 24 inch stems in the garden.  Flowers were far more robust, larger, and with more petals. But the heat (I assume) of the early summer (June) washed every bit of color out of the pristine white flowers.  But they were still quite nice.

        

              

[Hoy]

Bravo, Rick! Anemone is one of my favorite genera!

[cohan]

Nice one, Rick, good to see these- I wasn't clear on how different rivularis would look from my local cylindrica, but I see its quite different... much showier flowers.. I've decided the greatest advantages of cylindrica are non-floral- nice leaves including fall colour sometimes, and wooly cylindrical seedheads persisting through winter..

[Tim Ingram]

It will be a little while until the wood anemones appear again but to whet the appetite these are pictures of stands of A. nemorosa in Blean Woods near to Canterbury last spring. En masse like this they are very lovely, but there is hardly any variation, just a few going pink as they age.

[Lori S.]

Well done, Rick!  You certainly have a lot more patience with seed-starting than I do.

What a beautiful sight, Tim!

Here is a bad photo, unfortunately, but after pondering it many times, I finally realized it's Anemone richardsonii, a yellow-flowered species that I had not seen before.  This little colony is growing in wet conditions along a stream in a subalpine meadow in Banff N. P..

             

[RickR]

Cohan, Anemone cylindrica is common her also.  Long ago, I too took notice of the foliage, and "discarded" the flowers.  Fall color is always nice here. 

I have grown two A. rivularis batches from two different sources to flowering (although no provenance was ever mentioned), and they are quite literally identical.  I have two more batches coming, hoping that one of the four will have more "blue" on the petals for better ornamental value.

Tim, a very lovely woodland carpet!  In our native woodlands it is very uncommon to see such large dominance of a single native herbaceous species, unless it has reduced itself to non-flowering status and acts simply as a groundcover (ex: Big leaf aster in the shade).  Our woodland herbs tend to remain quite diverse in their natural setting.  A sign of a healthy ecosystem, I would hope.  Of course, we are not talking about any invasive materials, and in a garden stiuation natives can overtake, too.

Thalictrum thalictroides, our native Mayflower, would eventually overtake parts of my garden if I didn't keep it in check.  The species  makes a very nice background plant, as in this photo, with Syneilesis aconitifolia.

               

[cohan]

Beautiful, Tim- always love these sorts of deciduous forest spring displays, which we simply do not have-for one thing, we have almost no spring flowering forbs in our forested areas (apart from some tiny violets) our closest to this sort of display being Caltha palustris which can rather carpet   really wet woods- where it has a bit less competition from grasses/sedges than it does where it grows in the open- but you still never get this sort of extent of one species as in your photos...

[Hoy]

It will be a little while until the wood anemones appear again but to whet the appetite these are pictures of stands of A. nemorosa in Blean Woods near to Canterbury last spring. En masse like this they are very lovely, but there is hardly any variation, just a few going pink as they age.

Inspiring, Tim! Do I spot something blueflowered in the first picture? Hepatica nobilis maybe or a violet?

Lori, never heard of A richardsonii before. Seems to be a nice plant.

Rick, I wouldn't remove a single plant if Thalictrum thalictroides did spread! I have tried to plant it several times and they live but do not spread - often they disappear after some years too. And they are expensive to buy as live plants as it is often some rare cultivars which is for sale. Do you know if it is easy from seed and does the seed to be fresh?

Here are some pictures from my favorite spring flower wood on the island of Jomfruland near the town of Kragerø wher I have my summerhouse. Early spring it is Hepatica nobilis which is among the first but the blue colour has a tendency to "drown" in the dead leaves. When the wood anemone starts some days later all the wood brightens a lot.

[cohan]

Beautiful place, Trond!
Its funny looking at these to think that our local A canadensis (not a spring flower) is considered aggressive, but (at least among its native vegetation) it never gets to an extent like this, nor have I ever encountered such exclusive stands of it (nor any other plant here, for that matter)..

[RickR]

Exactly the same here with our native Anemone canadensis.  I have only seen its "aggressiveness" in the cultivated garden.

Trond, regarding Thalictrum thalictroides, I have never tried to purposely germinate the seed. My plants are descendents of the locally wild Minnesota natives.  Plants in the wild bloom for 2 or 3 weeks, but in the garden they bloom for 2 months without deadheading. this is what Dr. Deno says on germination:
******************************
Anemonella (Ranunculaceae). A. thalictroides germination has been very
low despite the fact that this species is native on the property. The only germinations so far were from two samples of fresh seed in 70D-40-70L(3% in 3rd w) and 40-70D-40-70D(3% in 3rd w). The cotyledons develop within a week of germination, and the seedlings developed normally. DS seed immediately rots on contacting moisture and is dead. Outdoor treatment and GA-3 need to be tried.
******************************
conditioning is always 3 months
70L = 3 months at 70F with light
70D = 3 months at 70F in dark
40 = 3 months at 40F
3% in 3rd w = 3% germiination in the third week of conditioning

Last year I tried to take note of seed development, but observations were haphazard at best since it was low on my priority list.   So not keeping very good track of individual seed clusters, I remember thinking to myself that I need to be more diligent, as I could tell which seeds were mature and which weren't.  I'll try to keep you in mind next season.

[Hoy]

OK, thank you Rick.
Maybe the seed of Thalictrum thalictroides is reluctant to germinate as it "keeps some seed in the seedbank" for germination subsequent years.