A new cultivar of Epimedium plant named ‘Cranberry Dancer’ characterized by its medium size habit and evergreen foliage with flowers that are burgundy spurs with yellowish tips and prominent burgundy sepals with white margins on airy branched corymbs beginning in mid-spring. The foliage has three leaflets of light chartreuse with bronze coloring in cooler conditions and becoming deep green in summer.

The Applicant asserts that no publications or advertisements relating to sales, offers for sale, or public distribution occurred more than one year prior to the effective filing date of this application. The first offer for sale was by Walters Gardens, Inc. on Sep. 15, 2023, to Pleasant Run Nursery. Subsequently, on Feb. 1, 2024, a photo and brief description of the new plant was posted on a website hosted by Walters Gardens, Inc. Walters Gardens, Inc. obtained the new plant and all information about the new plant directly from the inventor. Any information or disclosure about the claimed plant less than one year prior to the effective filing date of this application would have been obtained from directly or indirectly from the Inventor and would be a 35 U.S.C. 102(b) exception.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a new and distinct Barrenwort plant from the genus Epimedium and given the cultivar name ‘Cranberry Dancer’. The new plant was the result of a single seedling selection from a cross on Apr. 30, 2014, by the inventor between ‘Amber Queen’ U.S. Plant Pat. No. 17,197 as the female or seed parent and the proprietary unnamed selection of Epimedium zhushanense (not patented) as the male or pollen parent. The seeds from the pollination were collected in May of 2014. The individually selected seedling was eventually given the breeder code 14-7-2 after being first isolated from trials at a nursery in Zeeland, MI during the April of 2016. It was selected for the final introduction in the April of 2019.

Epimedium ‘Cranberry Dancer’ has been asexually propagated at the same nursery in Zeeland, MI by division of the rhizome in 2016 and found to reproduce plants that are identical and exhibit all the characteristics of the original plant in successive generations of asexual propagation.

Epimedium ‘Cranberry Dancer’, has not been observed under all possible environments. The phenotype may vary slightly with different environmental conditions, such as temperature, light, fertility, moisture and maturity levels, but without any change in the genotype.

In comparison to the new plant, the female parent has smaller flowers of bright yellowish spurs with yellowish sepal. The male parent has a smaller habit with deep purple flower spurs and lavender sepals.

‘Jester's Hat’ has a similar habit in both height and width but has flowers with brighter golden-yellow spurs with red sepals. ‘Dream Catcher’ has flowers with light yellow spur tips and reddish sepals.

Epimedium ‘Cranberry Dancer’ is distinct from the parents and all other Epimedium known to the inventor in the following combined traits:

DETAILED PLANT DESCRIPTION

The following is a detailed description of the new Epimedium cultivar ‘Cranberry Dancer’ based on observations of a two-year-old specimen grown in a shaded greenhouse in Zeeland, Michigan with supplemental watering and fertilizer as needed. Color descriptions are from the 2015 edition of The Royal Horticultural Society Colour Chart except where common dictionary terms are used.