I’m supposing the ‘Missouri May’ is the better choice for poor soils and for competing in a forest situation…but perhaps the Joy Creek is tops in a cultivated garden situation, so it appears.
I’m not sure I quite follow you. Curious to know your rationale
I noticed while taking pictures that despite being in the pot only a year, the rhizomes of the ‘Joy Creek’ clone elongated enough that all three shoots came up right along the plastic edge while the two ‘Missouri May’ shoots have a ways to go before the rhizome reaches the edge and appear to have only traveled about an inch or so from where last year’s shoot was.
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I wonder if ploidy differences might account for the relative vigor and precocity. I don’t think this has been investigated. Once more, forum members at the cutting edge it seems…
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A bit of Googling revealed that the chromosomes of Podophyllum peltatum are relatively few, but large which has made them easy to study. I have not yet found any evidence of tetraploids being found. I suspect the size difference is related to other genetic factors than ploidy and I am planning to hand pollinate the ‘Missouri May’ flower with pollen from the ‘Joy Creek’ clone to see if I can produce some seedlings to evaluate. They seem to have enough genetic divergence from each other that crossing them might result in some novel combinations both in morphology and in fruit characteristics.
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Darn, I just noticed Plant Delights has an additional clone of forma deamii (pink flowered/red fruited variant) that originated from a different location than the ‘Missouri May’ clone I already have. I am tempted to buy it, but last time I ordered three small plants from them they charged over $70 for shipping…
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The smallish one in my patch with the much less deeply lobed leaves is from a batch of seedlings that I raised. The parents were purchase from a local micro-nursery. I raised them in pots and they both fruited the year I purchased them. I ate the fruit and stratified every single seed. This is the only one that turned out runty.
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Wow, that’s rad
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I’ve been searching through iNaturalist the last couple days looking for photo-documentation of the rarer formas of this species. I just found an observation for the rare pink flowered form (forma deamii) and it appears even more saturated than the clones Plant Delights is selling!
And here’s one with pink more similar to what Plant Delights has.
Here’s another one that appears to possibly be the rare, multi carpel form (forma polycarpum).
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I bought one scrawny plant at a native plant sale 5 or so years back. It is now a nice patch under my elderberries.
So I can eat these things?
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The National Arboretum on route 50 in DC is overflowing with May Apples along the Azaleia paths.
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If you can beat the chipmunks, skunks, and coons, they are very tasty. Possibly the most tropical tasting thing that grows in temperate n. America. It reminds me of passion fruit and guava. The flavor is rich, musky, and complex. Foragers revere them. Wait until they turn slightly yellow. You know they’re ripe when they disappear.
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Wow, that’s some nice homework you’ve done! I didn’t know about either of these variants/subspecies. Now I wish I were more in their range so I could hunt some high quality I’ve messed with i naturalist a bit, though I could certainly stand to brush up on it. Does it allow you to message other users in some fashion? It’d be awesome to get more productive clones in circulation. The pink flowered / red fruited one seems very stately. The multi-fruited form is bizarre. There’s clearly a lot of potential here.
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You can tag people in comments on their observations, which I’ve done before. I’ve never found anyone willing to collect clonal material via that platform before though. There’s kind of a community vibe there of frowning upon using observations as maps to go collect material from which makes sense, but if done responsibly it could actually help proliferate the rarer things.
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Yes, that would be my inkling too. I can understand the rationale of “look but don’t touch”. It makes sense in the “if everyone did it” way too. Both are true enough. To a person versed in propagation and armed with the idea that ecosystems are created all of the time, harvesting for the purposes of growing out and planting out is also based in sound ethics, especially for rare things that asexually reproduce indefinitely. There are some underpinning values and assumptions there about the relative resilience of “nature” and the role we do or ought to play in its unfolding. Those who take a small bit of plant material and propagate it, and then build a bustling ecosystem out of it have a different lens than those who live with the experience of the built environment as something apart from nature.
I’ve at times taken plants from wild places as well as from botanical gardens and private properties, and not thought much of it. I abide by my own ethical standard, which would be understandable to another plant person, but admittedly to a layperson these things are easily construed as patently unethical. I harvest as little as I need to grow said item myself. I wouldn’t ever harvest something and turn around and sell it, for example., effectively mining the wild. Rather, I view my role to some degree as creating more wild, since by its nature, my collection is generating fodder for further propagation and dissemination. I genuinely believe that overall my growing things is very much a net ecological benefit, even if it may not seem so to some people whose primary frame of reference is “conservation” of things as they come about on their own.
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I checked my Mayapples a week or so ago and was glad to see them filing out. There were a couple of clumps with high percentages of flowering stalks. Many of these bigger ones are a single clone, which confirms somewhat my suspicion that this is not really a genetic trait per se, but more an indication of how happy the plants are. This patch had 100% flowering stalks:
As did this one. They’re hard to photograph, especially the flowers:
Lots of jack in the pulpit in this small woodland garden. I adore it.
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I got a better look today. The clump with 100% flowering stalks is nearly 2 ft tall- either a large statured type or well established, perhaps both.
The flowers are largest on this clump too
The runty little one is one of many seedlings I grew out, I believe. I was surprised to see that it too is flowering this year. Look at the difference in stature and flower size: Processing: IMG_3742.jpeg…
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I just bit the bullet and finally ordered two more accessions from Plant Delights. I’m really looking forward to crossing the pink clone with the other pink clone I already have. Even though they’re both pink, they’re from different parts of their range so the cross might result in some interesting genetic recombinations… Fingers crossed.
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How would you rank it in terms of “tropicality” compared to maypop and pawpaw?
It’s definitely something I’ve wanted to try but haven’t been able to find ripe (expending minimal effort).