Eucomis reichenbachii is a species I rarely hear mentioned with nicely spotted leaves (and green flowers) that has potential for breeding. Here in the SF Bay area it doesn't emerge until June (for comparison, Calochortus superbus and Begonia boliviensis are already blooming, and my other winter-growing bulbs are dormant). Here is a picture of the leaves emerging: http://flickr.com/photos/badthings/… When it flowers, I'll try to put a picture on the wiki. Max Withers On Sun, Jun 3, 2012 at 7:18 PM, Tim Chapman <tim@gingerwoodnursery.com> wrote: > >> . I think by >> "sparkling beauty" Tim means 'Sparkling Burgundy', which is widely >> offered, possibly not always the true clone of that name. > > Yes I meant Sparkling Burgundy, oops . > >> >> >> This is one of the best South African genera for growing in colder >> climates, because it emerges late in spring and can be protected by >> deep planting and plenty of mulch. However, the flowers of E. >> autumnalis can be ruined by frost in fall. >> > > These are very adaptable plants as they also thrive in south Louisiana. I originally planted them in a terrible location and they fortunately made it through a few years of not so great conditions. Here the E comosa types and the reddish E autumnalis types sprout first (some are blooming now) followed by E pallidiflora, and later by E zambesiaca and E bicolor (the latter are still not in the best location and this may be why the are always last. Perhaps these normally high elevation diploid spp just don't thrive as well as the lower elevation tetraploid spp do here. Too early to tell. > > I have three other spp to plant out eventually, and still looking for grimshawii, schijffi, a true montana, and amaryllidifolia. (I don't see it listed as such but E amaryllidifolia has been reinstated to species level by Duncan due to it being a diploid and not an allotetraploid like E autumnalis). > > Where did you buy the 'Dark Star'? I see 'Freckles' for sale online but hadn't come across Dark Star. > > Tim Chapman > > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/