Mediterranean geophytic plants

The Lyon Botanical Garden has been developing a great bulbs collection for many years. These plants were harvested in the wild from seeds or bulbs a long time before protection lists were edited. Actually we grow more than 1 500 pots, more than 1 000 of them have different origins. These species come from North Africa (mainly from Morocco), Corsica, Crete, Spain, Portugal and South of the France.

Narcissus bertolonii
(Sardaigne)

We mainly turned our sampling choice to complex genera and species deserving studies. In our cultures we insisted on the genera Scilla from the autumnalis group in the broad sense, Ornithogalum, Romulea, Narcissus, Urginea, Crocus and Colchicum.

Different kinds of bulbs :

A millions of years evolution made the plants organise different survival forms. The bulbs adopted an underground life. During the bad seasons they acclimatised in order to stock the nutrients they need to recover their aerial life once propitious conditions come back, often after a rainy period.

Although we call this group "bulbous plants", only a half of them have bulbs in the real sense of this word. Amongst the plants we grow we have real bulbous plants (Narcissus, Tulipa, Lilium…), plants with underground bulbous leaves or corms (Gladiolus, Crocus…), plants with tubers (Arum), plants with tuberous roots (Ranunculus, Anemone) and plants with rhizomes (Iris).

Scilla peruviana
(Tunisie)

Cares and culture :

In Lyon, we have to face some difficulties in winter : most of the taxons blossom from September for the earliest of them and from April for the latest. As the absolute minimum in Lyon is –22,4°C (in 1971) we have to protect the plants during the winter so we grow them : we maintain the collection under forcing-frames with a heating cloth keeping the temperature higher than 0°C.

We grow the plants in 12 cm diameter pots in a well drained substratum composed with 1/3 of loam, 1/3 of heat-mould and 1/3 of sand and peat. We don’t use mould for the bulbs.

Asphodellus acaulis

We noticed that some species – that are said to be calcicolous – grow better if their substratum has a pH lower than 6. We can suppose that in the wild, rocks are a refuge where plants find heat in the winter, mainly in calcareous rocks.

Our collection :

We have a great number of species that are rare in culture and threatened in situ. Our species come from the following regions :

Species harvested in North Africa :
Scilla peruviana, Scilla lingulata, Asphodelus acaulis, Romulea ligustica, Iris unguicularis, Dipcadi fulvum, Ornithogalum algeriense.

Species harvested in the Iberian Peninsula :
Scilla reverchonii, Iris subbiflora, Scilla monophyllos, Androcymbium europaeum, Crocus serotinus subsp. salzmanii, Biarum dispar and Biarum galiani.

Leucojum pulchellum

Species harvested in Corsica and Sardinia :
Ranunculus bullatus, Crocus minimus and corsicus, Narcissus tazetta subsp. bertolonii, Romulea requienii and limbriae, Hermodactylus tuberosus, Urginea fugax and undulata, Colchicum corsicum, Pancratium illyricum, Arum pictum, Brimeura amethystina, Scilla obtusifolia subsp. intermedia, Scilla autumnalis subsp gracillima, Ornithogalum excapum subsp. sandalioticum and arabicum.

Species harvest in the south of France :
Fritillaria involucrata, Fritillaria tubiformis subsp. moggrigei, Colchicum multiflorum, Muscrai lelievrei, Brimeura amethystina, Ranunculus millefoliatus, ornithogalum tenuifolium, narbonense and nutans.

Species harvested in Greece, Crete and Cyprus :
Corydalis uniflora, Tulipa bakeri, cretica and saxatilis, Gagea graeca, Ornithogalum chionophyllum, sphaerocarpum and pedicellare, Muscari spreitzenhoferi and inconstrictum, Chionodoxa cretica, Bellevalia nivalis, Biarum spruneri, Arum creticum, dioscoridis and idaeum, Scilla morrisii.

Muscari latifolium

Species harvested in Syria, Turkey and Lebanon :
Fritillaria elwesii, Biarum eximium, tenuifolium and dditschianum, Arum euxinum, Hyacinthella milingenii.

In the botany school – in the open air garden – the monocotyledons contain a collection that shows many genera, amongst them Tulipa and Narcissus. We have all the tulips from the Maurienne valley and many taxons of the Narcissus tazetta group.

Last modified: 06/07/2006 05:56 PM