Use of Native Geophytes of Ornamental Interest: The Case Study of Sternbergia lutea (L.) Ker. Gawl. Ex Spreng

This study presents the first results of a research aimed to test the potential use of Meditarranean geophyte wild genotypes, for ornamental purposes. This work is based on a previous research carried out in 2013 that consisted in a screening of native geophytes, whose bulbs were collected in highly natural contexts. The present work is about a pot trial on Stembergia lutea (L.) Ker. Gawl. Ex Spreng bulbs.

In particular, tests were carried out on a core of 204 samples of S. lutea, collected from uncultivated lands nearby of Irsina (Matera province, Southern Italy). The propagating material was split into 4 diameter classes: <20 mm, 20-25 mm, 25 -30 mm, and > 30 mm. The bulbs of each size class were subjected to 3 cutting methods: 1) deep cross incisions, 2) superficial cross incisions, 3) emptying of the walker; a non- excised bulb was taken as control . At the end of September 2014, bulbs were planted in 4.5 l pots at a density of 3 bulbs pot^-1. Pots were arranged in completely randomised factorial design with 3 replicates of each combination of the 16 experimental theses (4 diameters x 4 cutting types). During the trial some phenological (emergence, anthesis, senescence) and morphological (number of leaves, leaf size, number of flowers, number of bulblets, number of capsules) parameters were evaluated.

Results for the different types of cutting were similar regardless the diameter class , deep cutting gave significantly lower values of most morphological parameters , except for the number of bulbets which was higher. Also a delay of senescence was measured. Noticeably, the walker emptying method yielded a higher number of flowers, and hence a larger number of capsules.