AN ERANTHIS RIDDLE

A specimen fitting Franchet’s 1885 description of Eranthis albiflora on Erlang Shan

A Chinese Eranthis that suffers from an identity crisis

In 2007 I was browsing the then quite recently published volume of Flora of China (FoC) incorporating Ranunculaceae at efloras.org. Apart from the well-known Eranthis stellata, another two species are given in this: E. albiflora and E. lobulata. Both are very little-known.

E. lobulata is recorded in the flora with the comment ‘sepals and petals unknown’ (i.e. not seen in flower: from a botanical view this is a striking omission). It is represented by just three sets of herbarium material, one collection identified as the doubtfully

An undescribed variety or subspecies of Eranthis albiflora with extremely narrow bracts, differing from any known species. It grows with forms that could be attributed to E. lobulata. Photographed on Gongga Shan (Hailuogou, Sichuan) at 2,700m

Swedish nursery owner and plant explorer Eric Wahlsteen makes the case that two Chinese species of Eranthis are in fact one and the same plant

sustainable var. elatior. Knowledge of E. albiflora is equally scant, again with just a few herbarium specimens available, but in these flowers are present.

E. albiflora was described by Adrien Franchet in 1885 from material collected in March 1869 by Armand David during his stay in Mouping (now Baoxing), western Sichuan. It is striking that the 1869 collection is apparently the sole record of this species for the next 117 years, until the 1986 accession in Beijing from the 1986 Tohoku University China Expedition. One of the least known species, our present knowledge relies on these two widely separated samplings, the most recent by Naito et al. The diagnosis in Flora of China (Liangqian and Tamura, 2001) is essentially a translation of Franchet’s 1885 description, as is that in 1979’s

The plant on the left is typical of Eranthis lobulata; the one on the right is an undescribed variant. Photographed on Gongga Shan (Hailuogou, Sichuan) at 2,700m

Flora Reipublicae Popularis Sinicae (FRPS). The 1986 collection provided information about the tuber which was hitherto missing.

Pictures of the herbarium sheets have for long been the only available images. A small drawing, probably prepared by David, illustrates the parts of the flower, but is problematic in that the flowers as depicted represent the familiar E. hyemalis rather than the Chinese E. albiflora.

In 1965 Eranthis lobulata was described using material collected in Wenchuan in May 1930. The type collection, W.T. Wang 21018, is represented by a sheet of 19 fruiting and sterile plants. The Chinese floras published afterwards (FRPS and FoC) adapted the diagnosis without revisions. Only two other collections are present in herbaria: G. Schaller 38, representing two sterile plants from Wolong, and a Chinese collection representing fruiting plants determined as the type material for E. lobulata var. elatior, collected in Hailuogou and accepted by FoC. This taxon I find unsatisfactory, for the material designated is an overgrown, elongated specimen collected in midMay. In late spring all Eranthis elongate - it’s a seasonal rather than a physiological characteristic.

After my recent travels in western

Primula moupinensis on Gongga Shan

Sichuan it is now possible to provide a fuller description of the plant and its habitat. E. albiflora was found in two localities, on the east side of Erlang Shan and in the Hailuogou valley on eastern Gongga Shan. In late March and early April, at an altitude of 2,170m, E. albiflora was in peak flower on Erlang Shan, growing together with Primula moupinensis, Chrysosplenium davidianum, Arisaema auriculatum and other perennial herbs. The deciduous woodland consisted of maples, birches and dove trees (Davidia involucrata). The soil, a rather heavy and seasonally wet clay, had a pH measured at 6.5-7.

In the Hailuogou valley, by contrast, E. albiflora was found inside the nature reserve beside the footpath connecting Camps 2 and 3 at an altitude of 2,700m. With it grew Primula sonchifolia, Anemone flaccida, Corydalis sarcolepis, Primula moupinensis and Chrysosplenium davidianum. The woodland comprised Betula utilis, Abies fabri and several maples, with an understory of Viburnum nervosum, Berberis sanguinea, Fargesia sp. and Rhododendron calophytum. The soil pH matched that on Erlang Shan but its structure was sandy moraine with traces of sparkling shale.

Having seen the variation within the white-flowering winter aconites in the

Anemone flaccida on Gongga Shan (Hailuogou, Sichuan) at 2,700m

Luding-Tianquan area, it is obvious to me that only one species is involved, E. albiflora, albeit with some variation. Recent observations on these variations are supported by overlooked herbarium material collected by Potanin in 1893, kept at LE (01010239). These clearly show the variation within the species, some specimens with minute, dissected bracts, others with broader lobes. It is also striking that the basal leaf blade is often broadly lobed, whereas the bracts of the same plant are finely dissected. E. lobulata might well reflect an extreme sampling, whereas the Potanin collection appears to be more representative of a typical population.

E. albiflora forms a globose tuber and grows to 10cm tall with five or six bracts, lobed and divided to the middle. In March small flowers (around 15mm in diameter) appear, the translucent white elliptic or oblong sepals encircling four or five sometimes funnel-form, bifid petals resembling those of the Japanese E. pinnatifida. The flower has ten stamens with linear filaments and orbicular anthers, followed later in spring by four to five follicles, each housing three or four seeds.

Eranthis albiflora description: Rhizome tuberous-globose, circa 8-12mm across, blackish-brown with white roots. Scape 4.5-16cm tall. Basal leaves with 4-5 leaf blades. Leaf blade glabrous, tripartite, segments 0.5 to 0.3 of total length, obovate to cuneate.

This form on Gongga Shan is closer to Eranthis lobulata, with shallowly lobed bracts, and keys out as such in Flora of China. Corydalis aff. sarcolepis is seen in leaf

Involucre consists of 5-6 bracts, glabrous, tripartite with obovatecuneate segments, divided to midway, unequally lobed. Each lobe linear or ovate-obovate with an acute to obtuse apex. Pedicel 4-5 (-7)mm, glabrous. Flower white, 1.2-1.5cm in diameter, shortly stalked. Sepals white, elliptic or oblong, obtuse at apex. Petals 4 or 5, obcordate-funnel-form, emarginate on the exterior, bifid inside; stalks long, subequalling the blade. Filaments circa 10, linear. Anthers orbicular, pale yellowcream. Follicles 4-5, sessile, narrowly oblong, 8-10 × 2.5-3mm. Persistent style 3-5mm. Seeds 3 or 4, flat-globose, 1.82mm across.

Distribution: China, western Sichuan. Recorded from the counties of Baoxing and in Tianquan on the east side of Erlang Shan, 1,700-2,170m, and in the county of Luding (Hailuogou) at 2,700m.

Habitat: Recorded in open mixed forest and in grass at margin of forests and alpine meadows.

Phenology: Flowering March-April, fruiting May.

 Eric Wahlsteen runs Borealis, a nursery specialising in unusual garden plants, and teaches at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. He has written a number of articles and two books, and posts information about Eranthis on the internet via the-genus-eranthis.blogspot.com

Ipheion uniflorum ‘Rolf Fiedler’, grown by many AGS members, was named for a plant explorer who was fascinated by the flora of South America. A recently rediscovered letter from Fiedler led Chilean-based John Watson to reassess the Austrian’s contribution to horticulture and ponder what became of him

On a quiet Saturday in February at our home in Chile, on an uncharacteristically cloudy and cool summer’s day, my wife Anita Flores happened to be searching through boxes of photographic negatives. She was looking for a shot taken in 2000 of Calandrinia skottsbergii as a possible illustration for a botanical paper we’re co-authoring.

The most exciting event of the day so far had been an FA Cup match when Manchester City had for once managed to beat Chelsea (City’s manager Manuel Pellegrini is a highly respected Chilean, a true gentleman and scholar). I was embedded once again in the major task of revising our field guide, Plantas Altoandinas en la Flora Silvestre de Chile (the football having ended), when, with an air of mystery and suppressed excitement, Anita handed me a flimsy, faded and stained airmail envelope addressed to me when I lived in Kent.

She had no idea how it happened to be among her photos but was fascinated by the opening paragraphs of the letter inside. ‘It was 1975, and you were already an expert on rosulate violas, cariño,’ she exclaimed, with affectionate wifely mockery. That comment, together with the border of the envelope, gave 108

A letter from Rolf Fiedler – and the mystery of his disappearance

me a good clue to the identity of the writer. As I began to read through it and then glanced at the final signature, my guess was confirmed: Rolf Fiedler, an Argentinian resident, amateur botanical explorer and seed-collector.

The name Rolf Fiedler has important connotations for AGS members, both historical and current. Perhaps the most resonant of these will be Ipheion uniflorum ‘Rolf Fiedler’, a delightful soft mid-blue form which gained an Award of Merit from the Joint Rock Garden Plant Committee and has featured regularly on show benches.

Despite its reputation as slightly less than fully hardy when planted out in many gardens, it is gloriously

A vibrant clump of Ipheion uniflorum ‘Rolf Fiedler’ in John Watson’s garden in Chile

irrepressible for us here in central Chile. A few years back we dug up what remained of an unsuccessful edging of it, which was being swamped by vigorous competitors. The surviving Ipheion were rescued in the dormant stage. When dried out everything was passed through a fairly fine sieve. The loose soil was sifted and scattered along the margin of one of our wide earthen walkways, leaving many small white garlicky-smelling bulbs, along with some stones and clods. As we already had enough Ipheion in containers, and a colony established in the ground elsewhere, they served as ‘swapsies’ for a generous Chilean nursery friend.

That was supposed to be the end of that particular story. Not a bit of it. The following year leaves appeared from

among the sievings and 12 months after that there were flowers. Now we have a dense patch bordering the path. It blooms at the end of our winter of skeletal trees, reflecting the sky like a pool of water. Somehow or other, too, odd flowers will appear as if by magic here and there on any remote bare spot, even on the most trodden thoroughfares.

The species Ipheion uniflorum is native to the pampas and hills of Buenos Aires, surrounding Argentinian provinces and most of Uruguay, reaching 1,500m. It has escaped elsewhere in the world and has become a weed in places. The cultivar originated as bulbs brought from South America by Fiedler and donated to Kew. It then expanded from Kew into British horticulture. Finally, to complete a full circle, it arrived back in South America from British horticulture via ourselves – coals to Newcastle!

If the Ipheion is Rolf Fiedler’s most apparent long-term contribution to horticulture, it’s certainly not his only one. Fewer people may be aware that he also introduced the attractive and showy Sisyrinchium macrocarpum, whose only slight drawback is for its leaf-tips to become browned-off (actually more like blackened-off) at times. It used to be a best-seller during my short and misbegotten spell as a nurseryman in the 1980s! Despite its often imperfect extremities, S. macrocarpum has also gained a deserved Award of Merit. Fiedler must surely have one of the highest ratios ever of plant awards to collections made for horticulture by any individual or collective expedition.

As those who have the Alpines ’81 Conference Report on their bookshelves may witness, Rolf Fiedler flew over to England and presented, as an illustrated lecture, the first ever detailed personal review of the alpines of his adopted country. It was entitled ‘Plants of the Argentinian Andes’ and was subsequently printed in the Conference Report. There had only been two limited forerunners: Mrs Ruth Tweedie’s accounts of her introductions in the 1950s from the immediate surroundings of her remote southern Patagonian estancia, and Bob Woodward’s 1973 second-hand reverential appreciation in AGS Bulletin volume 41 of Harold Comber’s mainly Argentinian explorations in northern Patagonia, with information drawn from his field notebook and fleshed out.

Fiedler sent back seeds for a period during the 1970s and early 80s, then disappeared suddenly and mysteriously without trace. No one heard anything further from or of him. Once, when travelling in Patagonia, we met a local Argentinian family keenly interested in their region’s flora and who had known him personally. They intimated he had suffered some terrible personal trauma, perhaps in connection with a relationship, and had lost interest in everything, apparently even existence itself, for they hinted that he may have taken his own life. That is pure hearsay, which we can in no way confirm. I have been unable to discover more.

Having provided this background, Anita and I feel his letter of 1975 may be of sufficient part-biographical interest to reproduce in a slightly cut version, which is intended to retain the insight it offers into Fiedler’s very warm and human appreciation of wild flowers.

JOHN WATSON

Ipheion uniflorum ‘Rolf Fiedler’ has taken hold in bare and trampled ground in John Watson’s garden, the result of sieving a clump of bulbs but failing to remove every last one!

Importantly, it coincided with the first parts of my extended account for the AGS Bulletin of our own, then recent explorations in Chile, ‘Andes 1971 and 1972’. I have included a few clarifying notes in square brackets: ‘ Dear Mr Watson, As I had heard from members of the AGS that you were an expert on rosulate violas, I had been trying to get hold of your address and it had just reached me when the first part of your

Viola fluehmannii, described by Rolf Fiedler as ‘the most exciting thing’

article appeared in the AGS Bulletin... I read your article with a great deal of excitement and interest, knowing from my own experience the circumstances attending a trip in the Andes... [He went on to provide identities for one or two of my Bulletin photographs. Taken as a whole, those names have stood the test of time remarkably well.]

Now the most exciting thing is your Viola fluehmannii. This is very close to the one that I found near Lago Ñorquinco (at about 1,800m), of which I am sending you four slides. It is a bit variable in colour, some having quite pronounced green spots on the lip petal. Some are light mauve to nearly lavender, and some are bordered with a slightly purplish pink when they have just opened. The plant itself is of the same shrubby habit [as mine in the Bulletin]. The twigs are quite branched off, and the leaves, as you say, almost resemble needles. Yes, the lip petal is often ‘pinch-folded upwards’ and is densely dark violet stippled back into the throat. I found them among the pernettyas [now gaultherias] and also alone, quite low-growing and in some parts carpetforming. Added to their extreme beauty, they have the most marvellous and quite strong perfume, fresh and thrilling, not

A clump of Viola escondidaensis and, inset, a close-up of one flower

Viola montagnei, which Rolf Fiedler probably mistook for Viola canobarbata. Opposite, Viola volcanica, also recorded by Fiedler

at all like the Viola odorata, but at least equally exciting.

In the Darwinion Institute [Buenos Aires] where I take my pressed plants for identification, nobody had ever seen them, and so the specimen was sent to Dr Sparre in Stockholm. His verdict was: V. escondidaensis! This was among several new violets from the Andes collected by H.F. Comber in 1925-1927. I read the description of it [in Kew Bulletin, 1928] but by some way it does not fit the specification. The leaves are not pale green and are not whitish hairy, etc. Of course, the Kew description was drawn from the dried plant and not from the fresh one. What I do not understand is that Comber did not appear to be wildly excited about the plant. Regular botanists are sometimes quite indifferent to the beauty of nature. Many of them (certainly not Comber) prefer pressed plants to the fresh ones. They may be deeply interested, but are

unable to see the charm and beauty. The scent is seldom mentioned. Well, I am a chemist as well as a botanist, and at least to me perfumes mean a very great deal, and I would like to have your ideas about this.

I also found a completely black [-flowered] rosulate viola, and the description in Sampson Clay’s The Present-day Rock Garden of V. canobarbata seems to be the nearest I could trace. [Latest field evidence indicates V. conobarbata as being a synonym of V. montagnei.] Another two I came across seem to be V. volcanica, but while one has absolutely green leaves, the other’s leaves are strangely brownish in different shades and not at all green – although both had the characteristic purple short stripey marks [glands] on the underside of the leaves.

The more one sees of the rosulate violas, the more one is fascinated by their strange and interesting forms and their beauty. Is there any more literature available about them? [At the time, Sampson Clay was also my only source of published information on section Andinium, the rosulate violas.] Out here exact identification of plants is quite a difficult problem. There is very little literature at hand and there are very few botanists with all-round knowledge. [That situation has improved

dramatically over the intervening four decades, although unevenly still.] They are usually specialists in one or two families, but know next to nothing about other plants. Of course there are many more families than botanists – that is the trouble!

Before I came to the Argentine (I am Austrian), I was quite familiar with European plants, particularly alpines, but was rather lost here at first. Since then I have made botanical excursions in many parts of the Andes from Mendoza to beyond Esquel.

As I can only take my holidays during February and early March, it is bad for seeing the violas in flower, although better for the AGS seed collections (you will probably have noticed my contributions in the annual seed lists)! [More than that, his name and achievements were already very familiar to us, not least due to our own involvement with the South American flora. His final paragraph went on to describe future hopes and plans for advancing his involvement with the Andean flora of Argentina.]

With best wishes and looking forward ‘ to hearing from you. Yours sincerely, (Dr) Rolf Fiedler.

With the letter he enclosed four slides of Viola fluehmannii as well as one of Chaetanthera villosa, another of the choicest southern Andean alpines.

Sadly, and with continuing deep regret, I failed to reply to this gracious and detailed letter. A serious setback had recently hit me hard, which was indirectly affecting my family as well. Consequently, at the time I was confronting my own demons, struggling to cope with negative effects and barely managing with great difficulty to continue churning out the Andean series I was committed to for the AGS Bulletin. General correspondence suffered collaterally. So to some extent these words represent an atonement for that hurtful but unintentional neglect; a better-late-than-never reply, as it were.

At least I can not only provide the answer to Rolf Fiedler’s main inquiry, but am able to update it with interest. Yes, his discovery was indeed Viola fluehmannii. In fact until very recently his was the first record of that species for Argentina, and was entered as such in Flora Patagonica Part 5 (1988).

As a relevant aside, our late colleague and friend, the Argentinian botanist Ricardo Rossow, who in fact studied and entered the genus Viola in Flora Patagonica, related to us that on encountering one of Fiedler’s specimens he was unable to find anything remotely like it in the botanical literature or herbarium cabinets of Argentina. He was fully convinced he had hit upon a new species. In fact he was on the very point of describing and publishing it when, by chance, he turned up the original Chilean botanical paper containing V. fluehmannii and realised it was one and the same. Almost the entire range of V. fluehmannii is located in southern Chile, where it has been recognised and familiar since being made known to science in 1892.

Fiedler wrote that his specimen was sent to the Swedish botanist and Andean Viola specialist of the time, Benkt

Chaetanthera villosa, one of the choicest southern Andean alpines

Sparre (later the author of the standard monograph on Tropaeolum), who identified it as Viola escondidaensis. Fiedler added that on reading the original description of the latter, he was extremely sceptical of Sparre’s determination (and rightly so!). His scepticism has never been shared by other professional academic botanists far more experienced than himself, who ought to have known better. For one, Ricardo Rossow also admitted to us that his failure to enter V. escondidaensis in Flora Patagonica was due to a combination of being given far too little time to research the genus and his believing its description to be so unlikely that he felt it might be erroneous. (Impossible! It was written by Wilhelm Becker, the greatest authority yet on these violas.) This led him to the conclusion it would be safer to omit the species.

This decision had lasting negative knock-on effects in standard flora lists for Argentina by the country’s own botanists. Until very recently corrected by ourselves, the absolutely distinctive V. escondidaensis was listed as a synonym of V. fluehmannii, with the latter even portrayed exclusively by photos of the former. Until coming upon and re-reading Rolf Fiedler’s letter, we had no idea that this gross mistake

Viola fluehmannii, which grows on volcanic soils among low vegetation

may perhaps have originated from that misidentification in Sweden by Sparre. As a further stroke of irony, five years later (1993) Ricardo himself happened to chance upon actual V. escondidaensis growing in the wild. We have a duplicate specimen in our herbarium collection that he generously gave us. He would certainly have written it up for publication in an Argentinian botanical journal had he not died shortly afterwards.

The AGS can feel pleased and proud that its own very recent guide, Flowers of the Patagonian Mountains by Martin Sheader and five others (only one an academic botanist) has V. fluehmannii and V. escondidaensis accurately defined and illustrated when the relevant trained academics of the country where both these violas occur are still groping around in the dark!

How the opinion on ‘cold’ science versus aesthetics that Rolf Fiedler solicited would have been answered by me at the time, I’m not really sure now. Maybe not too differently from my present perspective, even though that’s more detailed and sophisticated as a result of considerable study and experience.

In essence I consider science to be

Viola escondidaensis as seen in the AGS’s Flowers of the Patagonian Mountains

lessened without aesthetics and vice versa. Put the two together (intellect plus sensory reaction) and the result becomes more than their sum. Besides, appreciation of natural beauty inevitably has its roots in science, which tells us every feature evolved through interaction with surroundings and other organisms over time; that it usually has, or has had, a specific purpose, and may be a positive or negative influence on future survival and adaptation.

Such awareness can greatly deepen and heighten our pleasure and sense of wonder. Science should learn from aesthetics by asking questions about such purposes – for example, the functional whys and wherefores of colours, scents, forms and textures that we ourselves may subjectively find attractive, repellent or uninteresting. Science in turn can also teach us the most valuable lesson of all – that in nature nothing at all is truly uninteresting. We simply lack the time, capacity and insight as individuals to discover at best more than a minute fraction of what is on offer, and as a rule that tends to be the most immediately appealing.

 Note: some authorities now include Ipheion within Tristagma.

ISSN 1475-0449