[Alisdair]

Fritillaria persica is one of the giants of the family. This one, seen on the lower slopes of Mount Hermon when Oron was taking us around Israel on the MGS trip in March this year, was about a metre high, but they can grow half as high again:
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It grows wild from southern Turkey and Israel east, into Iran, and does take some frost as well as dry summer baking, so is quite an adaptable garden plant in mediterranean gardens - people grow them fairly successfully in cooler countries, too. This particular wild population had straw-coloured flowers, but nurserymen sell better-coloured selections. The most widely sold cultivars are dark purple - one of the most striking of these is 'Adiyaman'. A good pale cultivar is 'Ivory Bells'.

[Alisdair]

You may have guessed that I’m cheering myself up on a drab damp grey midwinter day by browsing through some plant photos taken in sunnier times!
We saw these frits in south west Turkey, on that same MGS trip as the one mentioned in my Centaurea posting, in April 2010.
Fritillaria acmopetala (first two photos) was quite variable but always elegant, not uncommon in meadows or drier ground near woodland.
Fritillaria whittallii was the most chequered of the frits we saw, again a tall elegant plant.
Fritillaria crassifolia (next photo) was an intriguing dumpy little thing, its flowers charming plump bells; we found it in a not very stable patch of scree.
The last picture is of a plant growing nearby which we thought was a natural hybrid, Fritillaria crassifolia x pinardii.
I know Jorun and John, who were with us on this trip, both have some splendid pictures from it – I hope you’ll let us see some of them!

[JTh]

Yes, there were plenty of very nice flowers to be seen on this trip, which I greatly enjoyed. I had to go through the photos from the Turkey trip this autumn, when I prepared a talk about the excursion I gave in a garden society a few weeks ago here in Oslo. Fritillaries are among my favourites, even here in Norway they are doing well. There were many of them on this trip, all of them new to me, and I see that we have been photographing some of the same plants, Alisdair, I recognize the leaves. I have a few photos of some fritillaries you did not show below.

At first I thought it was difficult to see the difference between F. acmopetala and F. elwesii, but I feel confident I can distinguish between them now, F. elwesii (first photo) has much narrower, slender bells.

In the scree area near where we saw the F. crassula I also saw a beautiful, small yellow one, we were told it was F. carica, but I am  not sure if it is this or F. forbesii, or maybe a cross between the two, or could it be Fritillaria aurea x pinardii? I tend to believe that it may be the last one.

[Alisdair]

Beautiful pictures, Jorun, thanks! That little golden one is certainly intriguing, perhaps only DNA testing would spill the beans about its ancestry!

[Fleur Pavlidis]

Aloisdair, I beg you not to call them frits, Fritillaria is such a pretty name...

[Alisdair]

That's a bargain, Fleur, if you stop calling me Aloisdair!

[JTh]

I am very fond of Fritillaria, here is one that grows in my garden in Oslo, F. pyrenaica. It is maybe not quite Mediterranean, but as the name says, it belongs to the Pyrenees (southern France and Northern Spain). The flowers are very pretty, reddish checkered on the outside, the inside is bright yellow.It must be very hardy, it grows even in the very north of Norway, well above the Polar Circle. Has anybody tried to grow it in the Mediterranean region?

[fragman]

Fritillaria persica is in full bloom right now. Its is rather common in N Israel.

[Alisdair]

Lovely pictures, Ori; takes me back a year, to our fascinating MGS trip to Israel with Oron. Though we saw this then, we didn't see such a glorious drift as that hillside of yours.

[Alisdair]

Three fritillaries (is that better, Fleur?) flowering under glass in the UK for us at the moment, photographed today.
The first is Fritillaria sibthorpiana, grown from seed that came originally from Mugla, Turkey.
Next is another yellow, Fritillaria conica, a Peloponnese endemic grown from plants that were originally given to me in 1995 by Alfred Schattanek. I haven't yet found a spot in our own hot Peloponnese garden that's cool enough or damp enough for it to persist there. It's usually single-flowered; the photo shows how very close together the flowers are held when this species has two flowers.
Next is one of those species which produces endless numbers of rice-grain-sized baby bulbs - Fritillaria hermonis, the amana subspecies that's in much more general cultivation than the type subspecies. These plants came from rice grains given to us many years ago by Erna Frank.

[JTh]

I found some seeds of Fritillaria pontica in Halkidiki, Greece last summer (in a very sunny and rocky place), I have just sown some of these, hopefully they will germinate. I also found one single plant in bloom in the spring, the inside is more exiting than the outside, but it was impossible to get a sharp photo of it from that angle.

[Alisdair]

Even from the outside it looks absolutely lovely, Jorun!

[Alisdair]

For Jorun's photo showing clearly the big diagnostic spots inside Fritillaria pontica's bells, click here.

[Ina]

I found those fritillarias last week in Lefkada. The 3 first were growing on an altitude of 1000m and the last one, the bud, around 800. It looks to me that it could be Fritillaria messanensis.

[Alisdair]

Yes, that's it Ina, a Peloponnese endemic.