Bulbs from South Africa - 2010

[fermi de Sousa]

That is just too confusing for words!  
Thanks, Alberto, for letting me know.
cheers
fermi

[Ragged Robin]

Flowering now on the windowsill in the 'smallest room';
Polyxena ensifolia

in amongst the humour and lovely bulb photos this is a tiny gem -  definitely one to give a room to 

[Ezeiza]

It is terrible, Fermi, only that in the future this carnival of name changes will be used! As a matter of fact, both names canadensis and flaccida are already used in a couple of commercial sites.

[PeterT]

my plants under both names grown from seed are yellow and identical, about 40 cm high.

[Ezeiza]

Albuca maxima (now A. canadensis) is a massive plant with white green banded flowers.

[PeterT]

I have that too... It flowerd over 2meters high with fleshy fastigiate leaves. I planted it out because it was too big to accomadate under glass. It has not reappeard but its 2 year old seedlings are around in the sand.  The sand has no heat only a glass cover so the young bulbs will certainly have been frozen last winter. glad to be able to name it, thanks Alberto 

[Darren]

Last year I mentioned offsetting in Massonia and hinted that I would experiment with cutting up a spare bulb:

http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=4639.480

Well, immediately after the bulbs went dormant in early summer I cleaned up a bulb of M.aff. echinata and cut two deep V shaped grooves (in a cross) through the basal plate, thus destroying the growing point. This is the same as 'scoring' a hyacinth bulb, to which Massonia are related of course. I dusted the bulb with sulphur and allowed the cut surface to dry for a few days. Then placed it in a bag of almost dry vermiculite and put it in a warm place until september. In early september I could see that little white bulbs had started to grow on the cut surfaces so I just put the bulb directly into the sand of my greenhouse plunge as I thought it would be slightly more sterile than compost in a pot. 4 Shoots soon appeared at the surface and I knew my efforts had been successful.

Today I excavated the bulb to take a picture and to confirm that the process was similar to that described in my post last year - it was.

In picture 1 you can see the whole thing. In picture two a closeup of the base of the original bulb, showing the newly formed offsets. In picture 3 is the top of the original bulb. You can see where the original shoot should have emerged. The white tissue in the hole is actually part of the shoot which has emerged on the right - it has worked its way around beneath the outer scale and emerged through the side of the bulb.

I can see a use for this technique if one has an especially nice clone to bulk up, though Alberto Castillo tells me that leaf cuttings may also work.

[Darren]

Speaking of Massonia propagation.

I'm pretty sure that this seedling from my owns seed ex M. sp 'Burdach 11182' is actually a hybrid, and I further theorise that daddy is a pustulate form of M. jasminiflora.

Picture 1 shows 'mum' in flower.

Picture 2 shows mum shortly before flowering, with the distinctly reflexed floral bracts.

Picture 3 shows the probable pollen donor, with pustulate leaves and bracts which do not reflex at all.

Picture 4 shows dad in full flower.

Picture 5 is a closeup of the 'hybrid' which shows floral bracts and flowers much closer to 'dad' in form. The flower has some pink in the anther filaments, like mum, and you can just see that the very tip of the floral bracts do reflex, also like mum.

Picture 6 shows the leaves soon after emergence last month ( sorry it isn't very sharp) and you can see that they have inherited some of dads red pustules, though these become less distinct as the leaves develop. They even have some of the fine hairs of mum's leaves too.

Picture 7 shows the 'hybrid' in full, but it is not yet in full flower.


There is probably no great significance to this except that one should be careful when producing seed and I can find no other record of Massonia hybridising.  My solution is the Massonia prophylactic shown in picture 8!

I should point out that Burdach11182 was also thought to be a form of M jasminiflora at one time (in which case this isn't strctly a hybrid) but is , I'm told, now thought to be a separate species (but likely very closely related).

[angie]

Darren that's brilliant. Love dad in full flower.
Found that really interesting. Maybe one day I will have a spare bulb that I can try and do this but until then i will enjoy what i have.   
I am in my greenhouse everyday looking at mine. Thanks 

Angie

[Lesley Cox]

A brilliant little lesson there Darren, both the top propagation pics and the lower hybrid pics. Two lessons in fact.

Mum hairy and Dad pustulate? Frequently it's the other way around, especially with teenagers.

[Paul T]

Darren,

Both Mum and Dad are gorgeous!!  

Thanks for the fascinating lesson in multiplication of Massonia.  Brilliant!! 

[Darren]

Thanks for your kind comments! 

Hopefully I can now get some true-to-name seed to distribute next summer!

[David Nicholson]

Last wimter was pretty cruel to my small collection of Lachenalia and Polyxena species but here are two that survived.
Polyxena longituba
Lachenalia rubida

[daveyp1970]

Lovely David,really liked the  Polyxena

[PeterT]

Very nice David, I noticed a few Lachanalias today too which must have survived last winter but I have never had them look that good