Cyrtanthus 2009

[Armin]

I never looked into this Cyrtanthus taxa.
Very interesting.

[Hans J]

  Maggi 

more and more confess 

Renate : nice pics too - thank you !

[Maggi Young]

Maggi 

more and more confess 

Renate : nice pics too - thank you !

Yes, Hans!! 

[Lesley Cox]

Lovely things, every one. I should try more and will certainly look out for C. spiralis. A gorgeous flower and like a good detective story, with a twist in the tail (or leaf .

[Paul T]

Hans,

WOW!!  Gorgeous leaves on the spiralis.  I didn't realise there was a Cyrtanthus spiralis, I have liked every "spiralis" in any genus I've come across!!

Alberto,

Glorious pics.  Interesting to see loddigesiana, as it was part of a hybrid I flowered for the first time this year.  Can clearly see where the flower shape on mine came from, as well as some of the colour.  I do like that second last "sp" as well.  Great shape and colour, unlike any Cyrtanthus I've come across before.

Renate,

Oh that soft pink mackenii.  A colour I've been after for a while (I have orange, yellow, and creamy white as well as a new red that has been sent to me recently but that I have yet to flower).  The C. sanguineus is a great flower and colour too.  Very nice!!

Thanks for starting this thread Hans.  Excellent to have them all together here. 

[David Nicholson]

Hans and Alberto,

great pictures.
Here are some more nice plants.

Renate, lovely pictures. I would be interested in some more information on how you grow Cyrtanthus mackenii in particular. I said in a previous post that earlier this year Paul Tyreman had kindly sent me some bulbs of three colour breaks that had just finished flowering in Australia. I potted these up, and as I had read somewhere that the species can be evergreen, I continued watering them and they are now in good leaf.

[Heinie]

David,
C mackenii is evergreen and I grow mine in four 30cm pots. They flower regularly all year and they like morning full sun and after noon a little cooler. I water weekly except during winter when it rains.

[David Nicholson]

David,
C mackenii is evergreen and I grow mine in four 30cm pots. They flower regularly all year and they like morning full sun and after noon a little cooler. I water weekly except during winter when it rains.

Thank you Heinie but I am now a little confused I wonder if it is because of your climate down there in Cape Town that keeps Cyrtanthus mackenii in leaf all year round? For example I know that Hans Joschko, in Germany, waters his plants until October and then dries them off in his greenhouse and starts to water again from the following March. My climate is probably quite a bit wetter all year round than is Hans' climate, he is warmer in the Summer than I am, and I am not sure how we match during Winter. My Winters tend to be wet, and mildish, and we do get a little frost but not a great deal as we are close to the coast. The vents in my greenhouse are left fully open all year round and in addition I have no glass in my greenhouse door and one pane of glass is removed from the opposite elevation to give a good throughput of air.

When I received my bulbs, from Paul in Australia, as they had recently flowered there, I did wonder if I should just keep them dry and start to water them in March next, until I read that they could be evergreen. They do look pretty healthy with about 8cm of foliage but the days will be getting shorter now.

[Hans J]

David ,

here is a information from the WWW which I have found before minutes ( it is in french ):

Culture
Note : Les Cyrtanthus sont parmi les Amaryllidaceae les plus difficiles à cultiver, de mauvaises conditions de culture conduisant à la pourriture du bulbe...

ZR = peut être 7 pour C. ochroleucus, sinon à partir de 8 ou 9 selon les espèces. 10 pour C. elatus.

Evergreen : brachysciphus, elatus, epiphyticus, herrei, montanus, obliquus, obrienii, ochroleucus, staadensis.

Evergeen ou summer grower : eucallus, mackenii, sanguineus.

Summer Grower : breviflorus, clavatus, contractus, falcatus, galpinii, guthrieae, huttonii, loddigesianus, smithiae, speciosus, spiralis, suaveolens, tuckii.

Winter grower : C. fergusoniae, C. guthrieae.

[David Nicholson]

Hans, thank you. Now you know how good we 'Islanders' are at foreign languages! I shall be quiet for a while whilst I translate.

[Heinie]

It even makes a lot of sense for me Hans. The specie names remain the same which makes it easy.

It should not take too long David 

[Paul T]

David,

They're evergreen here.  The creamy white form has just finished flowering for me now, it tends to flower in winter here each year.  I expect the orange will flower in mid to late spring, and the yellow tends to flower late summer from memory.  I can check for sure exactly when my previous pics were taken (which is how I work out what flowers when.  ).  I know that the yellow had flowered not long before sending to you, in fact I think it actually WAS in flower when I took a piece off for you.

[Hans J]

Hi all ,

I have now sent a PM to our french member Dominique -maybe he can help us with a translation

[johnw]

David - You will enjoy C. brachyscyphus. I grows without difficulty here and flowers for 3-4 months. It has just finished here with fair seed set - enough to send to the exchange.

Thanks to everyone for the marvellous Cyrtanthus pictures - that C. spiralis is a smasher Hans.

johnw

[mark smyth]

Hans what was your source for C. spiralis? My plants and bulbils died during last winter