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Plant of the Week
Autumn Daffodil, Lily of the Field
Latin: Sternbergia lutea
 With all of the excitement that bulbs cause in March, it is surprising that
fall bulbs create so little interest.
The reason is that they arrive when the garden is already awash in color and a
few delicate additions are easily overlooked and outshone by the visually more
demanding plants of the fall garden. But there is a pecking order amongst even
the fall bulbs, with the lovely Sternbergia at the end of the line.
Sternbergia flowers bloom in September and October on 8- to 10-inch tall stems
with upturned golden, goblet shaped blooms. The flowers are to 2 inches across
and are produced singly at the end of the blooming scape, but each bulb can
produce up to four scapes. The plant is classified in the amaryllis family
because of the papery sheath that surrounds the unopened flower bud. Leaves are
daffodil-like and appear with the flowers in the fall and eventually reach 12
inches in length. The bulb is hardy throughout the state. Bulbs are available
from mail order bulb merchants but are almost never in the boxed bulb displays
one sees in the stores.
Our plant is named after Count Kaspar von Sternberg (1761-1838), an Austrian
botanist and founder of the Bohemian National Museum in Prague. There are eight
species in the genus, all from southern Europe and Turkey. This species hails
from Palestine, Syria and Persia and is one of several bulb species that may
have been the "lilies of the fields" mentioned in the Bible. It has long been
grown in this country, and for many years the only source for bulbs in the
Virginia colony was from the Palace Garden in Williamsburg.
Sternbergia is adaptable and can be planted in full sun or light shade. The
long-necked bulbs are usually planted 4 to 6 inches deep in well drained soil.
Overly deep planting will discourage blooming. It is ideally suited for planting
in groundcover beds, in the rock garden or amongst spring blooming plants such
as creeping phlox or dianthus. The foliage will persist through the winter and
die down during the spring. This little bulb resents being moved so once a
colony is established, pretty much leave it alone unless you need to divide it
to increase the size of the planting.
By: Gerald Klingaman, retired
Extension Horticulturist
- Ornamentals
Extension News -
October 15, 1999
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