Diversity and Mutant Hunting?

I've a penchant for the overlooked oddities that occasionally crop up in wild plant populations. A couple of years ago I spotted a stand of wild foxgloves (D. purpurea), off to one side stood a very pale green flowered sport. Annoyingly it was on the motorway banks and I couldn't pull over to adopt a couple of seeds. I'm still looking for the double flowered sport, I'm told it occurs very rarely.

The hedgerows along the more rural roads can offer a wealth of interesting mutations and occasional cultivated/wild hybrids, just yesterday I drove past some clear pink Primroses (P. vulgaris) on a bank with their yellow coloured relatives, along another road I sometimes travel, there are white flowered Lesser Celandines (Ranunculus ficaria).

Years ago, a trip to Uffington White Horse (chalk figure in Oxfordshire) didn't seem such a great idea as it was windy, cold and drizzling. We walked up to Wayland's Smithy (an old barrow) and covering the sides of the pathway like a procession were hundreds of Sweet Violets (Viola odorata) from white, red-pink, light blue and darkest purple.

Yesterday I saw a plant I've been keeping an eye for a few years. I saw it a few years ago thinking it would revert back but it's multiplied. It's a Buttercup (Ranunculus acris or possibly repens, I'll have to look harder next time), it's leaves are almost black to the point where they're hard to see. Not a huge rarity in Ranunculus but nevertheless, it's not often seen.

Yes, it's fascinating. i haven't come up with anything really good yet, but keep trying every time I'm out. Round here we have loads of violets as you are describing, anything from white (as I posted in european and this forum) through reddish, blue and rich dark purple - scrummy!
Bluebells are often interspersed with clumps of whitebells (not often the pink that seems fairly run of the mill in Cornwall)
Will let you know when I finally make that big discovery LOL

Around here, most of the real oddities that I've seen have bee "twinned" flowers and this one is a regular recurence:

http://davesgarden.com/t/260377/

Ooops I forgot I wrote this!

Philomel

I've not seen the natural white form of Bluebell even though there are a number of bluebell woods in the north of the county. Did you find out the name of those violets in your friends fields? A wonderful light blue colour!

Kathleen

What is a bee twinned flower? Interesting Trillium, I wonder if they would come true from seed? I'm a Trillium dunce and they rarely grow for me although, I did spot that one had survived in it's pot over winter, they just won't take in our soil!

Sorry Baa, not been back with time to spare yet - better do it soon or they'll be over!
I'll look out for white bluebells then and take a photo :)

Thanks Philomel :)

We've a huge colony of H. hispanica in the front garden and some in the back, they come up in all sorts of colours and no matter how many I pull out, twice as many return. The next door neighbour asked for some and yet they never grew in his garden. We also have some native bluebells in the garden (planted by me) and they look like they're set to rampage too despite the fact that they're living on acid soil *G*, I suppose no body told them that ;)

Yes, despite living near a chalk quarry, my garden soil is mildly acid where the bluebells grow and they multiply (understatement) My mother has waged a longstanding war against hers and is nearing eradication point lol.
I too have H hispanica, already resident when I arrived :(

I have noticed one new roadside verge where the council supposedly sowed native flower seed which is riddled with H hispanica. This is very sad as it's near a large wood full of native bluebells :(

LOL I suppose your bluebells haven't read the books either.

Yipes! Councils make so many cockups on native plant sowing you'd think they'd have learned a bit by now.

We like to keep some of the bluebells since they are one of the few plants that actually grow in the front garden, they're just so invasive! I'm thinking of digging a big hole and just burying money in there since that is what I seem to be doing anyway *G*

LOLOL That might sprout even if nothing else ever does (apart from the bluebells). It's always worth a try

If I thought I could grow money that easily, I'd definitely give it a go *G*

Wouldn't we all ;)

"been" sometimes my touch is light. The trick with the trilliums is finding them again after they've gone to seed. I may have a try this year, but I've learned that if you mark a plant that ravaging rodents are apt to abscond with it. Or the bloody deer!

Almost all the "wildflowers" that get pplanted by government bodies around here are really those lovely escapees from early gardens, now so ubiquitous that they are just assumed to be as "native" as the rest of us!

Hi guys...just noticed this now! I've got a variegated Couch grass (Triticum repens) which I found growing in my lawn LOL! It was only a little piece at the time...and now i've got a pot full of it!

That could be a winner MrPlantaholic lol!!

I've put your white bluebell on a new thread Baa - and there's white Cardamine pratensis on a cuckoo thread in european :)

Kathleen

Thanks for the clarification.

For the year 2000 various groups decided it was a good year to plant native British trees to replace some of the woodland lost. Turns out the species being planted were actually from other countries and therefore not native at all. Sigh!!!

(for anyone wondering what the problem is here, a British daisy - Bellis perennis, has slightly different genes to Bellis perennis that grows in France but they aren't sufficiently different enough to warrent different names. Once the genes get into the wild population it changes the local gene pool forever)

MrPlantaholic

Variegated couch grass? Naw, still don't want it *G* I wonder if it's some type of chlorosis?

Philomel

Thanks, they are beautiful!

you mean to say you didnt did the white Ranunculus ficaria!! Thats how all the cultivars were found. There is a nursery here in the UK that specialises in unusual British plants. I cant remember it's name. If you know it can you add the link?

here it is

Natural Selection based in Wiltshire
http://www.worldmutation.demon.co.uk/plant%20list%2002.htm

new for 2003
http://www.worldmutation.demon.co.uk/2003%20additions.htm

Saw one pink bluebell in the woods yesterday amongst a sea of blue!!

I know there are lots of them in Cornwall, but this is the first one I'd ever seen in Kent - and I didn't take my camera :( (it was raining)

BTW this one was definitely our native bluebell, not hispanica!
Are the ones in Cornwall hispanica?

I never dig up plants from the wild, I might adopt 10 seeds from a large colony, but that's it. The white Rfs weren't there this year oddly