South African Bulbs 2013

[ashley]

Nice Arnold.  Was that expected or a chance seedling?

[angie]

Really nice  Love when they have knobbly bits on the leaves.

Angie 

[ArnoldT]

It came to me from a PBS distribution as a "purple leaf" Massonia pustalata.

[fermi de Sousa]

The label for this one is present but blank!
I think it might be Galtonia (Ornithogalum now?) regalis; any othe rsuggestions?
cheers
fermi

[fenius]

I loved the massonia pustulata, I'm definitely trying it next year!!
..So as soon as I brought them in, polyxena (lach. now!) ensifolia maughanii (??) bloomed inside its leaves again like some months ago..then it was even worse actually (see second photo taken in may)..Is this normal, is it still young?who knows!

[ArnoldT]

With some better light here's a close up of the anther and stigma.

Massonia pustulata purple leaf.

[ArnoldT]

Freesia fulcata

[Maggi Young]

Arnold - a beauty there - does it smell as good as it looks?

[Ezeiza]

Freesia fucata

Arnold, your skills as a photographer are beyongd praise.

[ArnoldT]

Alberto, Thanks, took much practice and good light to get it right.  I have discovered that direct sunlight is not ideal  We have four inches of snow over night and the diffuse light through the greenhouse is perfect.

Maggie:  No smell.  Very disappointed.  I like the freesia smell very much.

[Maggi Young]

I've just been discussing whether we might get a white Christmas - not if you keep getting the snow at that rate, Arnold!

What a disappointment that the freesia has no scent.  I find that florists' freesia tend to have less scent  these days too - and I'm pretty certain my sense of smell is still working quite well - though I do know there are documented cases of people who have otherwise good sense of smell who just cannot smell freesia at all. Fascinating.

Anosmia of fresias.....
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v242/n5395/abs/242271a0.html

[François Lambert]

Maggi, most florist's flowers no longer have scent unfortunately.  Because humans primarily focus on sight & size, flowers are selected to have big beautiful flowers to see, additionally they must last for a very long time in our overheated homes, resist the air travel from where they are grown to here, and if possible these plants should also yield big crops of flowers for the growers.  During this selection process apparently there is no priority on including fragrance in their criteria.  A bit off topic, but most of us will remember a heavenly scented rose from the garden of our grandparents, while the modern cultivars we find now in the nursery trade barely scent  .  But these modern cultivars flower for a much longer period and rain will not harm the flowers.

[olegKon]

The label for this one is present but blank!
I think it might be Galtonia (Ornithogalum now?) regalis; any othe rsuggestions?
cheers
fermi

I would say Galtonia regalis, Fermi, as leaves are bright green and flowers are greenish

[ArnoldT]

Alberto:

I just saw the spelling correction, thanks.

[Diane Whitehead]

Fifty years ago I used to choose yellow freesias because they were
scented and other colours were generally not.

The same yellow colour delivers scent in primroses and dionysias,
as I discovered when visiting an AGS meeting in England.