April Flowers

[ThePainter]

Hi,
The most abundant flower in our woods today are Wood Anemones and Lesser Celandines, Ive seen them many times before but just noticed today how varied the amounts of petals there are on these, the Wood Anemones I saw had either 6 or 8 petals, where as the Lesser Celandines had anything between 8 and 11 !
These varieties were from flowers growing side by side.

Has anyone else seen any more extreme amounts of petals on these, or know why the variety ?

[thunder]

Just natural variability. Wood Anemones vary between five and nine (and the book tells me that these sepals, not petals).

Six to eleven (mostly) is what the book says for the native subspecies of Lesser Celandine.

henrya

[aeshna5]

Both these species are naturally quite variable which has resulted in quite a few varieties in the horticultural trade- there's a Wood Anemone with a pale bluish colour- Robinsoniana + Lesser Celandines with pale yellow to orange flowers, some hideous doubles + my favourite- Bronze Hussy with lovely dark foliage + judging by plants in my garden can set seed true to type for at least some of the progeny.

[ThePainter]

Hi,
Thanks
A few of the Wood Anemones seem to have a purple tinge to them too.
The seasonal woodland carpet between the Snowdrops and the Bluebells, its nice to see the woods waking up again, isnt it ?