It isn’t easy to imagine a more varied, interesting, or pleasing lot of plants than is embraced in the genus fritillaria.
The hooks tell us there are more than seventy distinct species; some of these, like the checkered lily and the Crown Imperial, are further divided into several named varieties.
This diversified group has a plant for almost every well-drained situation in the garden. And assembling a representative lot is sure to be many an exciting adventure.
To make that task more accessible and more certain to succeed, I am recording some personal experiences and a little knowledge I have garnered in the gardens of two friends who have made fritillarias their hobby.
Fritillaria Varieties
Fritillaria Pudica
One of the first plants in my present rock garden was FRITILLARIA PUDICA. After 15 years or more, and without regard to the coming and going of numerous less permanent subjects.
This plant continues to delight in each next spring with nodding flowers of golden yellow on 5” inch stems.
It is a plant for well-drained, light soil in full sun and should be an abiding fixture in any garden.
Fritillaria Pluriflora
Perhaps the loveliest of sun-loving natives is FRITILLARIA PLURIFLORA of California, from whence come most of America’s contributions to the genus.
It is a beautiful plant, with many rosy purple open bells on 8” inch stems.
Fritillaria Liliacea
Scarcely less lovely, though, is the white fritillary, FRITILLARIA LILIACEA, from the Coast Range south of San Francisco, with its green-veined waxy white flowers on stems of the same height or perhaps a little less.
Fritillaria Glauca
One known as FRITILLARIA GLAUCA, which is much like FRITILLARIA PLURIFLORA, with greenish yellow marks on purple bells and with glaucous leaves, is also to be reckoned with in any appraisal of native fritillaries.
Fritillaria Agrestis
When it is recorded that “stink hells” (FRITILLARIA AGRESTIS) earns its name by its unpleasant odor, the plant.
May stand condemned in the eyes, or rather noses, of gardeners. I hope not, though, because it does not deserve such treatment.
I have had two different forms of this species, one a low-growing plant of 4” inches and the other, the one described by Greene, far more stately, often reaching 15” inches.
The flowers, greenish-yellow bells, are much alike and are not as bad as the common name would indicate.
The fritillarias mentioned so far are easy to grow and permanent, and they offer a type of growth and flower not generally available in other garden plants.
Fritillaria Purdyi
To the preceding sun-lovers should be added FRITILLARIA PURDYI, though I cannot speak with authority on its reaction to extreme cold, for I have not grown it in my present garden.
However, it did wed in the old Ohio garden, behaving like a smaller FRITILLARIA PLURIFLORA with reddish-tinged white – flowers.
Fritillaria Recurva
For natural beauty in native fritillarias, however, one has to go to FRITILLARIA RECURVA. And like many beauties, this species is rather inconstant. I may have been unfortunate in getting recalcitrant stock.
Still, nothing in my experience so far tells me that this orange-scarlet beauty will ever be a permanent fixture in my garden.
They who know it in its native California haunts say it is a woodland plant delighting in leafy, well-drained soil.
Under such conditions, it should send up stems to a height of 2’ feet or more, with leaves in whorls and terminating in a graceful raceme of brilliant red, strongly recurred bells.
But it seldom does that more than once for me, after which it passes on to keep company with those that have preceded it.
Fritillaria Lanceolata
I do not know how the Rice-root Lily or Mission Bells, FRITILLARIA LANCEOLATA, behaves under natural conditions.
Still, it almost invariably dies after flowering, though its bulblets may be used to keep the plant going.
It is a highly variable species, for I have had them running from 18” inches to 3’ feet in height and from green and brown mottled bowls to almost black.
Fritillaria Atropurpurea
Another variable species, though not so much as time preceding, is the widely-distributed Fritillaria atropurpurea.
It seldom gets over a foot tall, at least in material that I have had. Hut the hells vary from a brown-spotted yellowish hue to yellow with a greenish cast and maroon spots.
The woodland lovers just mentioned are not permanent under any conditions I have contrived for them, and no doubt they will behave similarly in other sections of the East.
But they are worthy of repeated trials, and bulbs are so reasonably priced in the West that the fritillary lover can afford to make yearly stock purchases.
They have done my best in deep-well-drained leafy soil in about half shade.
Finding Fritillarias In Catalogs
The preceding fritillarias are usually easy to find in the catalogs of western dealers.
However, it is quite different when one commences taking for European and Asiatic kinds, excepting the Crown Imperial and the Checkered Lily (FRITILLARIA MELEAGRIS).
Many European and Asian fritillaries have passed through my trial gardens.
Some I should like to have again; others were briefly mourned, but I should not get them again.
And it would indeed take a lot of pains to get them together, as will be apparent to any collector. Not many are available in this country, and seeds are rarely listed.
I remember how eagerly I pounced upon the first extensive list of seeds that came my way years ago. About a dozen packets were ordered and carefully consigned to a falling frame.
A few of two or three kinds germinated the following spring, and one or two more showed up the following year. And that was all.
Sixteen packets were ordered from Rev. Anderson of England the next fall, which eventually gave me at least one flowering specimen, two, I think it was, blossoming the second year and one waiting until the sixth.
It gave me a lot of pleasure and a little knowledge of the genus, but it would scarcely be worth the effort to track down sonic of them again.
That is one significant drawback of an experimental garden I have conducted most of my life—as rapidly as plants show their characters and reactions to garden conditions, they have to make way for others whit]] have been waiting for their turns. It makes for interest and excitement, but rarely for a beautiful garden.
Well-Loved Fritillaria imperialis “Crown Imperial”
The Crown Imperial (Fritillaria imperialis) is perhaps the best known and best-loved of all fritillarias.
Its long association with gardeners has, of course, had no little part in that, but a combination of intriguing characters has no doubt had more.
The earliest writers recognized these signs, as will be noted in Gerard’s description, where he wrote, “The leaves grow confusedly about the stake like those of the white Lilly.
But narrower: the flowers grow at the top of the stake, encompassing it round, in the form of an Imperial Crowne (of which it took his name) hanging their heads down as it were bells.
In color, it is yellowish; or to give you the true color, which by words otherwise cannot be expressed.
If you lay sap berries in steep in fair water for the space of two hours, mix a little saffron in that infusion, and lay it upon paper, it showeth the perfect color to home or illumine the floury wit hall.
The back side of the said Nitre is streaked with purplish lines, which greatly set forth the beauty.
In the bottom of each of these bells, there are placed size drops of most clear shining sweet water, in taste like sugar, resembling in shew faire orient pearls; the which drops if you take away.
There do immediately appear the like; notwithstanding if they may be suffered to stand still in the flour according to his nature, they will never fall away, no not if you strike the plant until! It is broken.”
Since Gerard’s time, other colors have been introduced from the wild and gardens.
These include the following:
- Reddish-orange of AURORA or KAISER CROWN
- Brownish-orange of ORANGE BRILLIANT
- RUBRA MAXIMA, with large red bells
- Sulfur-yellow of SULPHUREUS, and many others
Best Soil For Fritillarias
In my light soil, the yellows appear the least vigorous of the lot, needing the best soil and the choicest situations for satisfactory performance.
On the other hand, the orange-colored ones do splendidly in a sunny or lightly shaded spot that has been thoroughly enriched to a depth of 15” inches with old rotted manure.
Light soil seems to induce rapid multiplication of the bulbs.
Consequently, contrary to the usual recommendation to leave them undisturbed for years, I find it reasonably necessary to lift them at least every third year, replanting the large bulbs in their bed and growing the small ones in nursery rows until they are ready to blossom.
A situation she turned from solid winds is recommended because of their stately growth (3’ feet or more in the most robust kinds) and the likelihood of the brittle stems being snapped off in gales.
Ideal Lifting Time
Lifting is best done as soon as the foliage dies down after flowering. At best, though, their behavior is quite eccentric, and one will never know how they will react until trial.
The architectural value of the plant has long given inc pleasure, though perhaps not so much as has the tracing of its sojourn in gardens.
As its introduction into England is credited to 1596, we search Gerard, who died in 1611 or 1612, in vain, for its “virtues” or folklore.
One early legend, and perhaps the favorite, as it seems to have gained wide acceptance, connects the plant with Christ in his experience in Gethsemane, which I quote from Mrs. Earle’s “More Potpourri From a Surrey Garden”:
“When our Lord in His agony was walking in the Garden of Gethsemane, all the flowers save this one bowed their heads in sympathetic sorrow. ‘ It held its head aloft in supreme disdain; our Lord gently rebuked it after that.
Smitten with shame, it hung its head and since then has never been able to raise it, and those who care to turn its face upward always find tears in its eyes.”
A French story; told by Ingram in his Flora Symboliea” rives ns another version: “The Duke de Montausier was married to Mademoiselle de Ilambouillet on New Year’s Day, 1634, and on the morning of the bridal.
The duke placed upon the bride’s dressing table a magnificently bound book, on the vellum leaves of which were painted from nature by the most eminent native artists, a series of all the most beautiful European flowers.
Famous French poets wrote appropriate verses for each bloom and elaborately decorated them on their respective pages.
The chief poem in the collection was contributed by Chapelain, who chose the Crown Imperial Lily for his theme, representing it as having sprung from the blood of Gustavus Adolphus when he fell mortally wounded on the field of Citizen.”
Checkered Lily
On the other hand, one can approach the Checkered Lily with the assurance that it will give freely over the years for every attention given.
It is undoubtedly best in a rather dampish spot in a reasonably rich loam notwithstanding catalog directions, which advice gives it dry soil.
That, at least, has been my experience, but when one has no damp spot, it usually settles down to its pleasant ways in a lightly shaded corner in a soil full of humus.
In such a spot, you can expect an increase from year to year of its little round bulbs from which will spring foot-tall stems, sparingly clothed in long narrow gray-.
Leaves branch to a foot, usually hearing two quaintly checkered hells. In the type or biological species, these are garnets on a paler ground, giving the general appearance of bronzy-purple.
It all makes a quaint flower, not showy, though a large colony is decidedly attractive—something the gardener, having known, would not willingly do without.
There is the variety ALBA, a wholly delightful thing with checkering,s of greenish-yellow on the nearly-white ground, each segment surrounded by green.
This is a plant of infinite charm, vigorous and gracious. But for strength and beauty in whites, one has to go to a variety of APHRODITE.
My favorite of all Meleagris forms is the one known as ARTEMIS, a thrifty thing growing to 14” inches under good treatment, with large bells of two tones of a wine color, producing an effect of gray-purple, always with ridges of the segments green.
That may not sound exciting, but the flower itself is most pleasing.
44659 by C. W. Wood