With one hour to spare, I am getting in a timely posting related to Douglas Justice's June in the Garden 2024 - UBC Botanical Garden blog. @vitog did a posting on Rhododendron nakaharae at the beginning of the month, when he read the blog and was looking for this plant. I found this today, was not expecting it to be what I was looking for based on the description of the "low creeping stems with an exuberance of large vermillion to cadmium-red flowers" and its being described as a ground-cover. I photographed one of the two plants in the Asian woodland section of the E. H. Lohbrunner Alpine Garden. There was only one open flower, but there were several buds, just not exactly an exuberance of buds. Maybe I've caught it early. Nearby is this Rhododendron 'Yodo-no-hikari'. I have the opposite comment here. Douglas described this as "an azalea for people who want to steer clear of overt expressions of floral exuberance". I'm fine with exuberant floral displays and I found this display showy and very satisfying. Nearby is a non-floral display of beautiful leaves on Rhododendron yakushimanum.
I checked out the Rhododendron indicum and several cultivars near the Fortune Trail in the Asian Garden. This one seems to be the species. Rhododendron indicum 'Giyoten' had the showiest flowers. These white Rhododendron indicum 'Yata-no-Kagami' flowers were also lovely. I didn't find the label for this plant on the left side of the stairs going down to the Fortune Trail from Henry, if I've understood where I was. I assume it is another R. indicum cultivar.
I photographed some other flowers last month, what seems like 30 days ago, but it was only 11 days. Maybe some of them are still in flower. If I don't post them here, I'll never find them again. @Nadia White Rock posted Gillenia trifoliata two years ago - here is a photo with the flowers more visible. If I learned anything last year, this is Geranium pratense, with more flowers than I saw last year. Nigella damascena are planted at the edge of the food garden to attract pollinators. They look beautiful next to the geraniums. This is Lilium martagon; across the path are some Arisaema consanguineum. These Campanula sp. are at what I think is the west side of the Reception Centre. They were looking very showy.
With that predominantly orange coloring the lily is presumably not going to be a pure Martagon lily. But either a hybrid of it or a different species entirely. Lilium martagon - Wikipedia
Thanks, Ron. Douglas Justice wrote me: The records show four different lilies in this bed, including L. martagon, L. henryi, L. formosanum and an unknown. Our original martagon bulbs were acquired from a volunteer (and probably not verified as to species), but L. martagon x L. henryi is definitely a possibility, as both were there for many years.One of the nine photos on Lilium martagon - Turk's cap lily | UBC Botanical Garden Garden Explorer shows the pink-purple colouring shown in the Wikipedia photo. The Wikipedia description says the colouring is "quite variable". It's not clear about the colouring being variable in the pink-purple range. Now I can't remember if the flowers were scented. I think they were. L. henryi flowers are supposed to be unscented.
The flower colour is typically a pink-purple, with dark spots, but is quite variable, extending from near white to near black = whitish through purple to blackish. With the orangeness of the UBC plant putting it well outside the range of normalcy for Lilium martagon.