P. balcanica in Bulgaria

[daniel]

Hi all,

a few months ago i have been again in Bulgaria and of course i went also to the mountains but somehow i did not show the new pictures, perhaps because they are very similar to these i have shown before. On the German forum i have already shown these newer pictures so a few of you may already know them.
At about 2000 meters there still has been some snow so i could not revisit all locations i have shown last time.
The weather wasn´t really good and it often rained so these locations have been very wet, some plants were even submerged so i could not reach these places. Because of the not so good weather the red coloured plants have been only slightly reddish this time.

During my stay in Bulgaria we have had several earthquakes, 5,9 on the scale of Richter. The epicentre was only about 15km from the place we live when we are in Bulgaria (Sofia).
Interestingly there are several springs of hot water at the bottum of the massif and it tastes really good.
Later this year these locations dried out nearly completly, it has been a very long, hot and very dry summer, several months with temperatures above 30 degree and nearly no rain.

I have shown some pictures on other forums some time ago but somehow i have forgotten to post them here as well, so here is a link from the past where you can see also some pictures of native plants and nice landscapes: www.cpukforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=38201&hl=balcanica

Location3 i also visited but the plants have not been in flower and location4 was still covered by some snow.

Here are the pictures.
Location1 at about 1500 meters, most plants have already been in flower.










Mites seem to like these flowers as well, often i saw them on the flowers.






Of course i found also some mutants like this one.


Location2, at about 1800 meters, 10 meters next to the flowering plants there was still some snow and some flowering crocus at the right.

Here not all plants have been in flower.


Green/yellow and red coloured plants next to each other.

yellow coloured plant

slightly reddish plant

green coloured plant

a group of greenish plants


A few days later much more plants have been in flower.

up to 3 flowers per plant, i even found some plants with 4 flowers.













These plants were growing between higher grasses, often nearly only the flowers were visible.


Hopefully you will like them and sorry for the big number of pictures.

Best regards,
Daniel

[jeff]

Bonjour

very very good report .

I am always surprise by these green and red leaves, one beside the other .

jeff

[Brian Barnes]

Hi Dani,

Wow. Excellent plants and flowers! Thanks for sharing with us...it brightened my day seeing such nice things.

Brian

[daniel]

Many thanks to both of you.
Yes, these different looking plants are really strange, so far i remember the plants that grow in Greece are exclusively green coloured.

Best regards,
Dani

[jeff]

you are sure , for the GREECE balcanica species?

these leaves colour some time on others species " in situ" around the europe seem to me common(varied red colour from red-orange to red brown ) , may be also on the subtropical US like planifolia , no !!!!

for me it this 2 colour leaves, very green and red ,very close who calls me, I have seen also this phenomen on alpina here in FRANCE.

are these red colour perenn in the time and reproductible by seeds ?

jeff

[daniel]

I have heard about 2 locations where only green plants occur, really strange.
Yes, i have heard about these green and red coloured P. alpina in France, also very strange. Do the flowers look different?

In my eyes the flowers of the green and red P. balcanica are slightly different.
They differ in the colouration, the white spots and the different coloured bristles. Some flowers are nearly without any bristles or they are very short. The greenish plants often have more flowers, in most cases the flowers are more pale (also the spur) and they do have longer white coloured bristles.
The red coloured plants often have also purple coloured bristles which are shorter.

greenish plants in cultivation




another plant in cultivation




Additionally the flowers of the green/yellow plants often are coloured nearly white from the lower side of the flower like you can see in these pictures, the spur is also relativly brightly coloured.

And here a picture i have already shown here in this thread.


And here is an example of a red coloured plant (well, in Germany the light level is not very high so this plant is not completly reddish), here you can also see the purple coloured bristles.


All in all it´s difficult because there seem also to exist "intermediate" plants which have only a slightly red venation on the leafes, nethertheless they grow in full sun.

So far as i remember the seed capsules are also slightly different, next to round seed capsules i saw also elongated ones.

About the reproductivity by seeds, normally it works if selfed by time but insects can also pollinate them with pollen from other plants.

Best regards,
Dani

[jeff]

Have you seen a difference on the sepal form ; example for round caps round sepal , for elongate caps oboval sepal ?

"well, in Germany the light level is not very high so this plant is not completly reddish" then without high UV , the red leaves are rather green reddish ?,

I have seen this modification on a red grandiflora leaves ; ' in situ ' very very red brown ' ex situ ' in LE MANS they become bronze in a first time then green after.

when I sow the seeds , the morphological caracter ,red, disappear (flower protect from the insects)

it seems for me that it is a antocyan reaction of the leaves cells , some antocyan react more or less to the UV.

jeff

[daniel]

Hi Jeff and others,

so far as i remember the red coloured plants do have round seed capsules and the green plants often have more elongated capsules but i have to admit that i have not often seen ripe seed capsules in nature (many years ago) because at this time of the year i have rarely been there.
So i can only talk about the plants i grow.

Yes, with less UV the leafes are only slightly reddish, like in the last picture, sometimes they are also more reddish, depending on the summer. And don´t forget that in nature the plants grow in much higher altitudes; here at my home they grow at nearly sea level.

In the case with your red grandiflora, can you really exclude that insects have pollinated them before you did it?

Best regards,
Dani

[jeff]

Bonjour

you have seen, may be ,the sepal corolla , on the red and the green their form are not the same ? or always oblong-oval obtuse ?

yes I exclude the insects pollinisation ,here on my cultivate, I put on the flower a paper sachet to have no pollinisation pollution ( it is my method also for all the others plant like my dorstenia), when I collect also 'in situ' some 'red leaves grandiflora' seeds , the result when I sow them are always a green form.

on P.poldinii and P.longifolia subsp longifolia f pinetensis , it is not the same result these 2 plants have always by seeds brown red leaves.

jeff

[daniel]

Like it´s visible on the pictures there are some differences.

About the seed, once i have sown out seed of a red plant which i selfed and a very big part of the seedlings have also been red coloured.
The interesting thing is that most plants on this mountain are somehow "intermediate".

Best regards,
Dani