This barrenwort was collected by the famed plant hunter, Roy Lancaster, on one of his trips to China. It's planted among roughly a dozen other Epimedium species and cultivars in one section of the Asian Garden, along the accessibility path. That's handy if you want to see many of these interesting flowers in one small locale, but it's turned into a bit of a management nightmare; the plantings are spreading into one another, and we suspect that there might be some hybridization occurring.
The curator of the Asian Garden, Peter Wharton, is taking action to tidy up the mess. “Divide and conquer” is the strategy, I believe - splitting up the assemblage and moving the plants to new (and separate) homes in the garden.
One last item: Roy Lancaster is going to be in the Pacific Northwest to speak at the Vancouver Hardy Plant Group's 2005 Study Weekend. It looks like the study weekend has a long waiting list, and it's fairly likely that Lancaster is one of the reasons why. However, I don't doubt he'll be visiting UBC - he's a good friend of many members of staff, and I hope to meet him.
Beverley Merryfield of the Vancouver Hardy Plant Group sent me an email as followup to this post. Darrell Probst, a noted Epimedium expert, will also be presenting during the study weekend. Although the study weekend is waiting list only, if you are keenly interested in these plants and live in the Pacific Northwest, Darrell will be giving a slideshow at Heronswood Nursery during Heronswood's days devoted to “Fairy Wings and Wake Robins” (link to Heronswood events page).
They look like tiny orchids...is there a family connection?
Agnes - no, they would be very, very distantly related. If you use the classical dissection of grouping plants into monocots and dicots, these are dicots while orchids are monocots.