Haemanthus 2014

[angie]

Really nice plants there. I have a few in flower now. They are bulking up quite nice, faster than I thought they would.

Angie 

[Hans J]

Hi all ,

I'm glad to report that the pollination of my Haemanthus was successful  and the seeds are now ripe
I can offer for swap or sale :
Haemanthus humilis v. humilis
Haemanthus humilis "Giant"
If anybody is interested please send me a PM

Hans

[angie]

Wow Hans you have done well, it must be all that sun that you have over there 

Angie 

[jshields]

Haemanthus (coccineus x barkerae) and the reverse cross, #2069.





These bulbs survived a heating failure in February when the outdoor temperature fell below 0 F (-18 C) and the inside temperature dropped to 16 F (-9 C).  Not everything in that greenhouse was so lucky.

Jim

[Maggi Young]

I can well imagine the casualties from such conditions, Jim.  Makes you wonder sometimes how we keep so cheerful, doesn't it?

[jshields]

I try to see a positive side of this catastrophe, namely that now I have room to try some new plants.  That is reaching a bit...

That same night, heaters failed in another building, where most of my Crinum collection was stored.  I lost at least 2/3 of those including some painfully rare things from Dave Lehmiller's collection.  There is no bright side to that one.

The two separate failures occurred on the last night of a 10-week cold spell that saw temperatures drop below 0 F (-18 C) on more than 10 nights.

Jim

[jshields]

There are a few Haemanthus survivors showing up so far.  Almost all of the H. barkerae have bloomed.  Out of ca 20 bulbs of H. coccineus, only two have bloomed so far, both from the same locality in the Gifberg.  About half of my bulbs of H. [coccineus x barkerae] have bloomed.  Two out of about 8 H. unifoliatus have bloomed, and only one out of about 20 H. lanceifolius has bloomed.


Haemanthus coccineus "Gifberg"


Haemanthus barkerae


Haemanthus lanceifolius


Haemanthus unifoliatus

The last surviving bulb of H. namaquensis, which did not even put up leaves last year, is trying to put up a pair of leaves now.  As noted elsewhere, the low temperature hit 16°F (ca. -9°C) when some of the heaters failed last winter, in late February.

Jim

[Maggi Young]

Jacob Uluwehi Knecht  ( ‏@jacobuluwehi on Twitter)  has posted this super photo:



Jacob writes : "Shy bloomer Hæmanthus paucifolius going to bloom. Had this for 5 yrs, finally blooming. #Amaryllidaceae #SouthAfrica

 I mostly grow slow-to-mature species, so five years is average, only I expected this species to not take so long.  Hæmanthus paucifolius seems to need to form big clumps of many 'deceptively-mature-but-not ' bulbs before it blooms...    not hard to grow, just tricky to bloom"


Another comment from Craig Gibbon  in South Africa, was  : "I've only ever seen this sp once in the wild and that was in a deep gorge in the Barberton mountains in cool, deep shade."

[Rimmer de Vries]

Hæmanthus paucifolius in bloom now

[Rimmer de Vries]

I received this last year as "white paintbrush lily".
my guess was Hæmanthus albafloss but someone told me it was a hybrid because of ht wide leaves , anyone know for sure?

 it has grown very fast, in 2013 it was a much smaller bulb about 1/3 the size it is now. 
 
the flowering photos were taken on October 13. 

the seed and leaves photos were taken this week

[jshields]

I received this last year as "white paintbrush lily".
my guess was Hæmanthus albafloss but someone told me it was a hybrid because of ht wide leaves , anyone know for sure?

 it has grown very fast, in 2013 it was a much smaller bulb about 1/3 the size it is now. 
 
the flowering photos were taken on October 13. 

the seed and leaves photos were taken this week

Rimmer,

I would say it's simply albiflos.   That species is rather variable, and by far more common than any hybrids of Haemanthus.

Jim

[Rimmer de Vries]

some better pics of Haemanthus pauculifolius inspired by Jacob's wonderful photo.

[Auricular]

Here some photos from my Haemanthus collection, no flowers now but different leaves

[Auricular]

2 more

[Maggi Young]

Your glass houses are very neat, Bernie   How much easier to accommodate the plants with upright-growing leaves than the ones with flat-spreading foliage- I imaging the chances of damaging those is quite high.