Impressions of the Persian Buttercup
Impressions of the Persian Buttercup A brief essay with pink and white images
K. W. Bridges
2016 Š K.W. Bridges kim@hawaii.edu www.kimbridges.com
This essay is dedicated to Mary Jane Bridges, my mother, for her life-long support and to Nancy Furumoto, my partner, without whom none of this would have happened.
Family Ranunculaceae Ranunculus asiaticus L., the Persian Buttercup
The Persian Buttercup was once the most popular garden plant in England. This versatile species could be purchased from the Dutch bulb catalogs in a bewildering variety of colors and color combinations. Some say 800-900 varieties were available in 1850. Today’s bulb catalogs list bulbs in little more than a dozen different colors. Fear not. We have not lost the colorful genetic potential of this species. The images in this essay show a small portion of the variability remaining in the genome. Note that this diversity includes both color and form. You need only wander around The Flower FieldsŽ in Carlsbad, California, on a Spring day to see for yourself.
Google Earth April 2015
Carlsbad California
Luther Gage brought the first Ranunculus seeds to Southern California. He developed the “Tecolote� strain. The business was developed, expanded and the floral varieties were enhanced by Frank Frazee and his son, Ed, over a period of many years.
Paul Ecke, Jr. acquired the company in 1993 as a joint venture with Mellano & Company as the growers. Today, this continues as a working ranch and major tourist attraction. It is expected that The Flower Fields® will continue in this role for many years due to the benevolence of the Ecke family. The Flower Fields® is a 50 acre showplace of Persian Buttercup. Most of the world’s supply of bulbs comes from this field. The plants are arranged so that the flowers form broad colored stripes. Tourists flock here to see this unique floral display. The focus here is on pink and white flowers.
Start by looking at the simple, single white variety. Then see how this was bred into “double� forms with more and more complexity in the shape of the flowers. While the flowers are found in a rainbow of colors, our focus is on white and pink. These two colors get mixed in many ways. There may be just a hint of a second color. Other times you find a mix that forms bold patterns.
Imagine what you get when you mix all of the other colors found in this species. That’s a story for another time.
Howard Myers got me to critically look at these flowers and stimulated the searches that revealed the interesting history of this species. I will always appreciate Howard’s important contribution. I want to thank the people at The Flower FieldsŽ, especially Fred Clarke (General Manager) and Jess Williams (Grower, Mellano & Company), for maintaining this critical botanical resource and for their cooperation with this project.