Early spring in the Southern Hemisphere

[Lesley Cox]

So pleased that my seeds of Gentiana depressa are germinating.

[Paul T]

Lesley,

I'm figuring by your comment that Andrew has Helicodicerus muscivorus flowering at the moment?  That is a VERY cool plant.  Called the dead horse arum for a number of reasons.  Mine aren't flowering this year by the look of it, although Andrew seems to run ahead of me by a few weeks in the majority of the things he posts pics of to the images list.

A pic of it would be great Andrew!!

[Maggi Young]

So pleased that my seeds of Gentiana depressa are germinating

So you should be, Lesley, great to be able to keep your lovely plant going with seed.  I wish I had  a plant like yours, that's for sure!

Nice aroids, Andrew.......if you acceed to the requests made, I guess I will be grateful, for once, that the Forum has no scent facility!!

[Lesley Cox]

It was a link to a website Paul, with some really nasty pics and good information.

I've given up trying to replace my camera's USB cable and got myself a card reader instead. So here are a few pics taken in the last fortnight, some out-of-date by now.

First a form of Anemone pavonina. My camera doesn't do reds well. This is purest scarlet and I prefer this form without the yellow band between the red and the black.



Here is the back of the plant I asked if it was C. t. `Whitewell Purple.' But I later realized I was looking at the next door pot's label (not flowering) so I think this is just a form of C. vernus. The leaves are too wide for tommies.



Crocus kosaninii is in a newly planted trough. It's in flower now, late by crocus standards, but last year it flowered in mid October!



And in another trough is C. minimus `Bavella Form.' The inside of this form is magenta compared with the lavender shade of C. minimus. But this year, there is less black on the outside of the petals, the distinguishing feature of the Bavella form.



This is Gladiolus or Homoglossum priorii or huttonii  I'd be pleased to have a definitive answer about this.



I mentioned above somewhere that a Swedish seedling of Corydalis solida had flowered in about one year. from germination. Here it is. My Swedish friend said there could also be a little C. malkensis in the mix so maybe this white is that species or a hybrid.

[Lesley Cox]

I can never resist another pic of Fritillaria michailovskyi. I have several clones now, from different sources, but haven't managed to locate a form with taller stems. These always sit on the ground (a raised bed) at bloom time, just elongating to about 10 cms in seed.



A much better pic of Primula clarkei, finished now but super while it lasted.




And this lovely old double primrose has been around for many many years. It is P. vulgaris `Lilacina Plena.'



Finally, 2 pics of the delicious Olsynium douglasii album. I lost my rosy form a couple of years ago (it became badly overgrown by something else) and 2 plants bought to replace, died immediately. From the seedlists last summer, (winter) the wrong plants were supplied, weedy sisyrinchiums of course .

[Lesley Cox]

Maggi, that picture (of Gent.depressa) I posted back in the summer/autumn(?) of 2004(?) was at its very best. Since then, although bigger, it hasn't flowered quite so well and at present, it has a couple of dead places in it. It probably needs digging up and pulling to pieces. There's a plant grown back from where I moved it last time so I'll pot that and hopefully grow it on to photographic stage again. But the seeds were a definite bonus.

[ajbroome]

Lesley said...

> ... please put up the Helico-thing link.

http://www.edb.ups-tlse.fr/equipe3/MG/helico/helico.htm

My plant is too small to flower just yet but it's doing
well and I'm prepared to wait.

Andrew.

[ajbroome]

Folks,

Two forms of Oxalis obtusa flowering for me at the moment.  They're generally the last to flower for me each year.  Beware, you may be flooded with pictures next year.

I also have a yellow flowered form but no flowers as yet.  The plant Lesley posted as U-11 a wee while back is also likely to be a form of Ox. obtusa but this is yet to be confirmed.

Andrew.

[annew]

Lesley, how did you manage to get text between your pictures?

[Lesley Cox]

Nice oxalis Andrew. Mine looks about half way between in colour, but it could be climate or camera.

Anne the process is as follows. Bear with me.
Type initial text then press enter once. Or twice if you want a space between pic and text.
Type attachthumb=1 ( in square brackets)***
Press enter once or twice
Type more text, press enter once or twice
Type [xxxxxxx] or 3, 4 etc to 10 if wished.
Type more text if you wish, then post.

Bob's your uncle!
*** That is [xxxxx]  - can't enclose the commands in this example because it starts looking for images that are not there!

[Lesley Cox]

Well, that didn't work because the programme thought I was making mistakes in the attaching process. Damn.

Have a look below the reply/post area where there's the Topic Summary and see what's there because although the instructions on the thread page have come up very wrong, below the post area, they're as I typed them in. Maybe they are on yours too.
 see red edit above to clarify

[Lesley Cox]

Of course when you do the [attachthumb= bit you don't get the file name underneath the pics to click on. But clicking on the pic itself enlarges just as well, and quicker, for me anyway. The only disadvantage I can see is that you don't have a record of how many times it has been viewed/enlarged.

[Lesley Cox]

Paul, going back to Veratrum seedlings. The first pic below is of V. nigrum, aged either 4 or 5 years from seed and the next two are of V. album which was sown in May 04 and germinated spring of 05. These, therefore are two full years old.







Even at 2 years they have 2 and in one case 3 leaves. (There are about 20 in the pot and I've scraped off moss which I'll go and replace with leaf mould in a few minutes. The roots you can see are not the Veratrums they are from a dandelion which I cut out.)

I would suspect that yours are probably coming up for the second time. The cotyledons don't unfurl like, say, a fritillaria or a tulip but come straight up like a slightly widish grass, to about 1 cm high the first year, a bit taller and wider the second. So many bulbous or woodlandy things germinate only in part the first year and a second lot comes though the following year. I'm going to put this potful into a larger pot now and then will pot them individually next year, to grow on to planting out size, which the V. nigrum is now though it will be 3 or maybe 4 years before it flowers. But don't complain about the time. You're half my age! It's also worth remembering that the time until flowering size is reached can often be reduced by a year or even two, by good cultivation including watering and appropriate fertilizing, and even more so, in my opinion, by planting in the garden rather than in pots.)

[fermi de Sousa]

Opps, I misnamed one of the pics in an earlier post!
This is the actual GBF "breeder" Decoy x Swagger


while this one is Staten Island x Swagger
 

cheers
fermi
PS I hope this works, Lesley!

[fermi de Sousa]

Woo-hoo, Lesley, it worked!
So here are some more!
Firstly, in honour of our neighbours, a NZ raised Triandrus Hybrid, Hawera:



Then another GBF hybrid, Cindy Lau, a newer version of Beryl:



Finally a Mitsch Div 6 hybrid, Rapture, with a couple of Glenbrook Belles below!



cheers
fermi