Corydalis solida

I discovered these charming spring bloomers late in my discover of the Corydalis family. I always knew the Corydalises as summer blooming perennials, long lived and gently (or not so gently in the case of ophiocarpa) colonizing the garden. These are spring bloomers, putting on their show right now, and are bought as bulbs rather than plants. I seem them in more catalogs all the time. The species is reddish pink and there is a names form, G.P. Baker, I think it is which is similar. What I have found is that they seed freely and seem to come up with endless variations in color when they do. They also transplant very easily, the babies having no bulb at first, only developing one as they grow. The can take a light frost without damage, but a hard freeze will do them in for the year. They are about 8 inches tall and as wide once established. They go dormant with hot weather - I didn't know that the first year and thought they had all died!
This first one is one of our seedlings, a lovely lavender.

This one has bloomed for the first time this year and is a lighter pink with a bit of white. I think there is one with more of a two toned bloom, but don't have a picture of it yet.


This next one is what you'll get when you buy Corydalis solida and we never knew about all of the wonderful variation we'd get in the seedlings when we got it. We liked it just the way it was, but now we like a lot of the seedling colors better. Good thing we have plenty of room for all of them.

This last is my current favorite and was one of the first seedlings. I love the deep grape juice color.

It's a lovely sunny day here, though a bit cold yet, only about 34 degres (F), so I'll probably spend the day weeding and mulching. Daffodils are starting to be in bloom everywhere and I'm planning where to plant more this fall. Just hate to have a bare spot in the spring when there could be a daffodil or some other spring flower there.

Tomorrow I think I'll talk about Bloodroot which has just started to bloom.

Jane