South African bulbose plants 2008

[Jim McKenney]

How about The Monocots and Monotremes Monograph!?

Bit monotonous perhaps?

Cliff, every time I read the "utterly butterly" under your moniker ranunculus, and then see the five yellow stars, it reminds me of a nice big bowl of warm buttered popcorn. Mmmmmm....yummy.
Sorry, it's hard to stay on topic when the word butter appears. That Babiana image Fermi posted was such a lovely buttery yellow...

[Maggi Young]

Cliff, every time I read the "utterly butterly" under your moniker ranunculus, and then see the five yellow stars, it reminds me of a nice big bowl of warm buttered popcorn. Mmmmmm....yummy.
Sorry, it's hard to stay on topic when the word butter appears. That Babiana image Fermi posted was such a lovely buttery yellow...

Jim, are you my twin who was kidnapped by bandits and  taken to the USA.....

[ranunculus]

Would that make him butterscotch, Maggi?   

Very kind of you Jim ... but Maggi is wholly responsible (or should that be Marg')?

[Maggi Young]

Would that make him butterscotch, Maggi?   

Very kind of you Jim ... but Maggi is wholly responsible (or should that be Marg')?

I think butterscotch would be just the thing, Cliff!

Can't go with marge though... after a brief fling with Stork ( as in: you can't tell talk from mutter !!) when I was about three... it has been butter all the way !

[Jim McKenney]

Cliff, every time I read the "utterly butterly" under your moniker ranunculus, and then see the five yellow stars, it reminds me of a nice big bowl of warm buttered popcorn. Mmmmmm....yummy.
Sorry, it's hard to stay on topic when the word butter appears. That Babiana image Fermi posted was such a lovely buttery yellow...

Jim, are you my twin who was kidnapped by bandits and  taken to the USA.....

Might be, Maggi. Evidently my progenitors got around a bit. I have a friend from New Orleans, Bobbie, who swears we must be brother and sister separated at birth: it seems we both inherited a  certain plant acquisition gene in its most robust form. Come to think of it, the participants in this forum are all probably related to me.

Do we have a bulb collecting gene?
Last week on the PBS forum we had been discussing the definition of the word "bulb" and one forum member posted this link to research on the eating habits (plant collecting...eating habits: I really a pretty simple person) of early hominids. Check out this link:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/288g93472x2000k2/fulltext.html

One nice idea which emerges from this paper: the acronym USO, meaning underground storage organs (no need ever to hesitate as you try to decide to say bulb or corm or whatever).

[Jim McKenney]

Would that make him butterscotch, Maggi?   

Butterscotch? I like it. Butterscotch it is!

[Jim McKenney]

Munching in Maryland

That good, too - and better for my teeth!

[Maggi Young]

Jim, I decided to combine the two!! Its about time you had a description of your own!

[Jim McKenney]

Jim, I decided to combine the two!! Its about time you had a description of your own!

Well done, Maggi, I really appreciate it. Here's a little butter story to prove just how appropriate it is. I've been away from my computer for the last few hours preparing a lunch for my sister who is visiting today. Part of the lunch was to be a strawberry tart which has a pastry cream/whipped cream base. I shook the container of whipping cream but heard no sloshing sounds. When I opened the container and tilted it, nothing came out. Then I looked: the opening was plugged with masses of butter! The cream had buttered in the container. I used it anyway, it whipped up nicely, and the tart had a half life of about twenty minutes.

Butterboy now promises to try to stay on topic for a while.

[David Nicholson]

Now look Jim, all this 'buttering up' of Maggi will get you nowhere at all, and as for throwing strawberry tart into the mix, well!

[Diane Whitehead]

Gladiolus geardii from last year's SRCG exchange. The seeds
had "wings" around the entire seed. I sowed them in mid March, and they
germinated two weeks later.

Now the leaves are much more vigorous than any gladiolus I have sown.
They are flat with a centre ridge, and look more like an Anomatheca.

  Here is a photo of the leaves of G. geardii and G.caryophyllaceus,
both sown on the same date - March 2008.

Is geardii considered a species now?  My gladiolus book (Lewis, Obermeyer
and Barnard, 1972) lists it only as a synonym of G. floribundus.

[David Nicholson]

Peter Goldblatt et al list it as a species in 'The Color Encyclopedia of Cape Bulbs'

[mark smyth]

On my recent trip to England it attend the bulb sale I bought a pot of Cyrtanthus montanus from Beeches nursery. Can anyone confirm it is correct?

[ChrisB]

You certainly did some shopping over here Mark.....

[mark smyth]

well Chris, what you people in England have that we dont is excellent independant nurseries. Over here we have one alpine nursery and one perennial nursery.