Corydalis solida seeds – Botanically Inclined

We shouldn’t let the spring go by without admiring and talking about Corydalis species.
Last year’s drought coupled with an April brief surge of temperature resulted in a not so great display of Corydalis solida. Few other species, like Corydalis malkensis (in the featured image with Helleborus caucasicus) and Corydalis paczozkii weren’t bothered as much. Corydalis nobilis is just starting to flower now, as usual.

Every year has its lows and highs in term of flowers display. Even so, the colorful masses of spring Corydalis can hardly be equaled by other ephemeral species. There are a lot of pictures already uploaded on this website (scroll to the bottom of this writing for related posts) so just a few for this spring.

Corydalis paczoskii, 2023

Corydalis solida 2023

Corydalis cava fo. alba 2023

Those new to this website and to the ephemeral Corydalis species can read about Growing Corydalis solida & allies from seeds by clicking on the link.

There is always looking forward to growing more Corydalis species, and early spring is a good time to also boast about our seedlings, thanks to attentive friends :) These were all grown from fresh seeds following the same sowing recipe as described above.

Corydalis ambigua seedlings 2y

Corydalis turtschaninovii seedlings 2y

Corydalis vittae seedlings 1y

The following article about Corydalis ambigua, also remarks the similarity in the germination pattern between various bulbous Corydalis species of temperate climate regions (link) – Ecophysiology of seeds dormancy and germination in the mesic woodland herbaceous perennial Corydalis ambigua in Japan: Tetsuya Kondo, Nori Okubo, Taku Miura, Carol Baskin.
Even more, Corydalis nobilis, albeit not bulbous, also germinates in the same way. Remnant seeds in the fridge have their seedcoats split and would germinate if/when moved outside of the cold storage.

Regarding Corydalis offerings for this spring
I will try my best to collect some seeds, but because the flowering hasn’t been too great, at least for C. solida, the seeds set will also be reduced. The same can be said about our native Hepatica species; the persistent drought of past years was reflected in poor flowering.
We can only know what and how many such seeds will be available towards the end of May.

As mentioned, Corydalis seeds have been collected, also most of the Hepatica acutiloba seeds (as of today). By next week we should also know what Hepatica americana forms are available.

What we need to know:

Seeds packing for Corydalis and Hepatica, spring 2022

All species will be made available at once, as soon as all Hepatica seeds are collected. They will be available ONLY during the month of June!

This spring I will use another method for the sake of speed and workload efficiency. I have tested keeping the seeds for a short period (+/- 1 month) in glassine envelopes which are then placed inside a plastic bag, instead of using moist vermiculite. This is how the seeds will be shipped.
It works very well and it will allow for faster counting/inventory accuracy/orders preparation.
It also allows for easier handling & sowing, especially for customers who are not used with moist packed seeds.

On the Seed List page – there is a special section now just for these early species. You can see a bit in advance what will be available; click on the desired ones for fast accessing the shop pages.

BotanyCa spring seeds are shown on top of the late summer/fall listing

Orders for these seeds can be combined with other species, but keep the adds-on short please. I recommend adding other seeds to the orders only if necessary; Lilium species and Paeonia (or other species that need a warm stratification first).

Corydalis solida red

Corydalis solida ‘Wildheart mix’

Corydalis caucasica

Corydalis malkensis

Those interested may want to review again: Growing Corydalis solida & allies from seeds

And, let’s see who’s reading the post till the end. The seeds packets shown in the picture (plus a surprise!) will be gifted to the first person asking for them :) Use the Contact (provide full name and address).
Thank you to all following the blog!

Posts will follow for Hepatica acutiloba and Hepatica americana before the seeds will be placed in the inventory.