Two types of N. cavanillesii

N. cavanillesii morocco  N. cavanillesii morocco  N. cavanillesii spain

One year ago I got two bulbs of a special type of N. cavanillesii from Gerd Knoche which probably comes from south of Agadir/Morocco. It is bigger than the Spanish form  and nearly every adult bulb  flowers whereas  from hundred bulbs of the Spanish N. cavanillesii perhaps only five flower in my greenhouse. The pollen volume indicates that it is hexaploid and  not tetraploid as  the Spanish plants .

Theo

 

8 comments for “Two types of N. cavanillesii

  1. Does this suggest two separate sub species? The difference between some of the other species seems to be less than this.

    Dave

  2. Hi Theo,

    The hexaploid is a very exciting plant. I hope you will try crossing it with assoanus with the aim of producing fertile tetraploids, based on the hope that cavanillesii is to juncifolia what viridiflorus is to jonquilla. Does this suggest there may also be hexaploid viridiflorus in the wild? That too would be an exciting find.

  3. Dave and Lawrence,

    It is a little step from a tetraploid species to the hexaploid form. An unreduced tetraploid pollen grain  of one plant must combine with a normal diploid egg of another of the surrounding tetraploid plants. This process occured for example within the section bulbocodium. Here the taxonomic consequence was to denominate different subspecies or varieties.

    I shall try to cross the hexaploid N. cavanillesii with N. assoanus, but I doubt that the descendants are fertile.

    Theo

  4. Prof. Sanders, is not this bigger N. cavanillesii the one that Mike Salmon described as N. cavanillesii subsp. mauretanicus?

    Rafa
     

  5. While Salmon claimed that N. cavanillesii subsp. mauretanicus was taller and with larger flowers and often carried several flowers on the stem, the plants we collected near Tangier did not seem much different from those in Spain. The width and size of florets is very variable in all populations on both sides of the Mediterranean. We have looked at many populations. Part of the problem with Salmon’s names is that he made them up for his bulb catalogs and never formally described them. Or if he did I have not been able to find the formal descriptions.
    Harold

  6. I have enjoyed this conversation. However, Harold, it still begs the question, do we have more than one sub species in your opinion?

    Dave

  7. David:
    No I do not think so. But I could be wrong I have been before :-)
    Harold

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