Description
The long and narrow spathes appear late in the summer and early in autumn, and are green or green-purple surrounding a long blackish spadix. A sinister, funereal but easy growing species. This is very variable in the colour(s) and form of its spathes, not all are the same as our main picture, do, please, see our gallery to give yourself a better idea of the variable nature of this plant.
The leaves of both this and var. abbreviatum, are plain green and unspotted, they are usually narrow, with wavy edges. Brian Mathew records (The Smaller Bulbs, 1987) that they can also be linear, undulate, crisped or even oblong in shape and we have noticed such variation within different horticultural stocks. Exceptionally a large plant may have undulate leaves while its still-attached offsets have linear leaves. More recent works have split basic B. tenuifolium down into several subspecies (further regarded by some as species), in which leaf characteristics are associated with the different taxa.
Biarum tenuifolium is the easiest of the genus to start with as it is hardy, or almost so, in most of the UK. It grows readily in a sunny, well-drained spot. A warm spot is best and in the right conditions it will thrive and increase nicely. It also does well potted, under frost-free glass in a fertile, loam-based compost.
The stock has been propagated from a 2008 Franz Speta Greek collection, made on Rhodes: “Mon. Kamirou, W Masari, 135 m, 9.5.2008″ is the data that we received from Franz Speta before his death.
