Gordon McNeil's plants

Greg Pettit goblin@itikzn.co.za
Sat, 13 Dec 2003 21:17:06 PST
Dear Jim,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>From: "J.E. Shields" <jshields104@insightbb.com>
 I wonder if all Gordon McNeil's plants are lost?  His wife still lives on
 the property in South Africa and still grows clivias.  Maybe she  has some
> of his crinums too?<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Greetings,  I have been to visit Margo McNeil a few times.  She gave me some
of Gordon's Crinum.  Initially I was excited about getting them but after
they flowered I became convinced that they were all Crinum moorei crosses
and that the incompatible pollen stimulated the apomictic process.  The
"hybrids" I was given all turned out to be small flowered moorei.  In fact
one is in bloom at the moment.  It is a darkish pink with firm petals.

There was a beautiful form of C. asiaticum that came from one of the Indian
Ocean Islands.  It was growing in a glade and was about 1,5 metres in
height.  I gave her a C. procerum to plant alongside it to hopefully produce
some decent hybrids (?).

I also recall that Gordon once wrote an article about a Crinum he found on
the Zululand Coast (Natal, South Africa).  He Idled it as C. ligulatum (I
think?) but it was no longer in existence so I could not verify what it was.
C. ligulatum should not be found on the African Coast (unless man brought it
here).

The Clivia are doing fine and Gordon had done some Clivia X Agapanthus and
Clivia X Eucharis but I could not detect where the Agapanthus or Eucharis
genes were.

Dave Lehmiller has also been there a few times (least ways, I think Dave was
the American that came to visit soon after Gordon's death?).  If memory
serves me correctly, he felt that the good species were lost and that mostly
moorei remained.

Gordon did a lot of work with Cyrtanthus but Margo thought they had all
died.  There were some clumps of Nerines and I brought some back with me but
in the 7 years that I have grown them, they have never bloomed.

Regards
Greg





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