Tanzanian Amaryllids

[jshields]

We just got back from a trip to Tanzania.  There were a couple amaryllids in bloom there, and one was Crinum macowanii.  We saw this in several places, including Tarangire, down in the crater at Ngorongoro, and even at a couple places in the Serengeti.

Jim

[Angelo Porcelli]

it's always nice to see photo of plants in habitat, it make to understand the growing needs. Now I realize this species goes dormant and flowers without leaves, as in habitat I guess there little rain in winter. My plants instead are evergreen or ever loose leaves for excessive summer drought !

[jshields]

Since Tanzania is almost on the Equator, there isn't really a winter, although January is said to be the hottest month.  There is a "Small Rainy Season" in December and January, fed by the Great African Lakes, Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika.  In March, April, and May, there is a "Big Rainy Season" fed by the Indian Ocean Monsoon; or so it was explained to me by our guides.

This year, the Wildebeest Migration was about two weeks early, and there had been a nice rain about 10-14 days previous to our visit.  Much of Tanzania looks almost like a desert, probably properly called semi-arid.  Yet some mountainous areas get 1500 mm of rain per year.  Those are rich agricultural areas, at least the ones we saw were.

I have to confess that I was mainly interested in the plants, and only secondarily interested in the climate as it affected the plants.

Jim

[pontus]

Hello Jim,

that is fascinating to see.

during my past 2 trips to Tanzania, I have mainly seen crinum aesticum in bloom and possibly some moorreii, but never any macowanii. Where exactly did you see the plants in ngorongoro? where they in one location or dotted over here and there as individual plants?

i had also come across some knipnofia sp on Mt Meru, and of course some "garden bulbs" such as cannas.

Did you visit any Tanzanian nurseries while you where there?

if you had ventured around the town of moshi and its gardens you could have seen probably the only sternbergia lutea ssp angustifolia in the whole of africa, flowering in 4 or 5 gardens..! .. I brought a few bulbs as gifts to local tanzanian friends and their relatives there on my 2nd visit in 2010, and they have told me that they have been flowering beautifully!

I will be going back there in february, so hope to encounter some nice plants there then again. There is also a "small rainy season" in november, which probably was the cause of the recent rains you mentioned that had occured before your visit.

Pontus

[jshields]

Hi Pontus,

I'm not familiar with Crinum aesticum at all.  Might that name perhaps be a synonym?

The C. macowanii that we saw were scattered as individual plants, usually but not only in areas near seasonal streams.

I saw no C. moorei at all except in gardens.  There was one other Crinum species that I could not identify; I'll post about that one later.

It is awfully nice to be back where I can brush my teeth with the tap water for a change!

Jim

[jshields]

This Crinum is a mystery to me.  It has one or sometimes two flowers per scape, peduncles 1 to 2 inches long, flowers appeared plain white at a distance, but close-up showed a faint, broad pink middle band on the outside of the petals/sepals.  The leaves were only partially emerged, but were very narrow and strongly channeled.



What is it?

Crinum I know or think occur in Tanzania include kirkii, macowanii, and politifolium.  Any others?

Jim

[pontus]

the picture you just posted looks a bit like Acaule...or minimum..but I am not aware that those sp exist in TZ...did you also see this one in Ngorongoro?

Pontus

[jshields]

According to the kew.org advance search, Crinum minimum is found in Tz.  I think the "mystery" Crinum is probably C. minimum.  I think we saw the only colony of it between Tarangire and Ngorongoro, but I'm not positive.  I didn't take a GPS along with me on this trip.




C. acaule is not listed by Kew for Tz, and the acaule I've seen do not look like my "mystery" Crinum.  So let's call it Crinum minimum.

The list of Crinum species in Kew for Tanzania is:

     Crinum kirkii Baker
     Crinum macowanii Baker
     Crinum minimum Milne-Redh.
     Crinum ornatum (Aiton) Herb.
     Crinum papillosum Nordal
     Crinum politifolium R.Wahlstr.
     Crinum stuhlmannii Baker
     Crinum subcernuum Baker

Jim

[Maggi Young]

Jim,  I'm glad you are getting to the name of that  charming plant.
Thank you so much for sharing the photos with us - I guess you had a really good trip!

[jshields]

Maggi,

In retrospect, it was a very good trip.  In the course of the trip, I spent far too much time obsessing over details and worrying about things that could go wrong to really enjoy it, as usual.

We could have seen more amaryllids in flower, but I'm satisfied with what we did see.  We saw scattered individuals of Scadoxus multiflorus multiflorus in bloom, and this rich red one was the most beautiful.



Only S. multiflorus and S. puniceus are listed by Kew for Tanzania.  Unfortunately, all we saw were just coming into bloom, and there wasn't a seed of any amaryllid to be found!  Ten days earlier, and we would most likely not have seen a single amaryllid in flower.

Jim

[jshields]

Dave Lehmiller, of I.B.S.*, thinks that this crinum is likely to be Crinum walteri rather than C. acaule or C. minimum.  Then there is C. piliferum in Kenya, too.  We'll probably need to get material from that colony to make a definitive identification.  Too bad I didn't think to collect a couple herbarium specimens at the time (my wife would not have been happy).  It was too soon after the first rains for there to be any seeds anywhere, and Dave says the fruit and seeds would be critical for an I.D.  I'm calling it "Crinum cf. minimum" for now at least.

Jim

*International Bulb Society

[jshields]

John Grimshaw warned me to watch out for Ammocharis tinneana in the Serengeti.  We saw a robust Ammocharis there, as individual plants, never in colonies.



This one was in Tarangire, but is probably the same species.  The Ammocharis were not yet in bloom, and one or two of them looked to have had the flower buds chomped on before we got to them.  We didn't get out of the jeep to examine these plants closely.

Ammocharis angolensis is also listed by Kew for Tanzania, but I don't know anything about what it looks like.

Jim

[Roma]

I've just been watching a programme on BBC 4 about the Okavanga Delta in Botswana.  There was a shot of a Crinum flowering in what looked like fairly deep water.

[jshields]

Roma,

There are Crinum species in southern Africa that grow only in seasonal bogs and marshes (vleis) when they are flooded.  A few that come to mind are campanultum and carlo-schmidtii.  The latter actually occurs in the Okavanga, so that might be the one you saw.

Jim