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Happy news: my Tropaeolum azureum is alive. It has been at least 2 years since I've seen any top growth evident in its special double-insulated pot. I was certain it was gone and went to re-use its pot. When I dumped out its soil, a fluffy mix of half pumice, there was this healthy dormant tuber over 4 cm diameter. That is about four times the size of the original tuber I purchased from Telos in 2020. My notes show it sprouted in November 2020 and I recall its spectacular bloom in 2021 but not in 2022 nor winter 2023. I know these can take a year off but not two years. It was not for lack of water since we got more rain than average last winter. Here is a photo of the tuber sitting on 1/2 inch wire mesh. The tuber is really only 1.5 inches across, just the photo angle makes it look bigger. This is the top side. I'll add a photo of the bottom side too. And even tho it is not an October photo, I'll include a bloom of this Sleeping Beauty. 

They are notorious for that kind of behavior. But not only Tropaeolum. I have a healthy and firm bulb of Albuca clanwilliamigloria which has not sprouting in two seasons either. 
Many desert bulbs behave like this as well.
 
Uli 

Ooh me too, me too. I grew some Tropaeolum from seed, they flowered nicely and produced the most beautiful bulbs I've ever seen, but they never grew again from the bulbs.

Hi, I got these Sternbergia lutea in a BX two years ago. I wonder if this clone always has eight tepals...

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Carlos

 Colchicum lusitanum, 'forma' gibraltaricum

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Carlos

I finally got a flower on a Zephyranthes longistyla given by Uli

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And Colchicum filifolium from Mallorca


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Carlos

The first of the Nerine bulbs I have from Exbury is opening. It is 'Kalahari Dusk'. I have about 20 flower spikes on various cultivars, but this is the first to open.

Cyclamen hederafolium Wonderful scent

This came up really fast and opened today. Of course it is Paramongaia weberbaueri.

Did you grow the Paramongaia from seed, and how long did it take to flower?

I bought the bulb on eBay.co.uk before Brexit happened. It was very small - about the size of a large garbanzo bean. It took 3 years for the first flower. Last year I tried the microwaved pollen method to get a seed, but it failed.

Hi, I found one bulb in Germany last year. It never really woke up, and two smaller plants I got just grew for a couple of months before going dormant. It seems very picky with temperatures, which maximum and minimum do you grow yours in?

Carlos

It started growing last month as the temperatures started to drop, around 23°C. The flower spike comes up really fast, then the foliage will start to go dormant in January. It doesn't really get below 10°C or above 27° in the summer in the Azores. After it goes dormant, I take the pot inside so the pot doesn't bake in the sun and everything dries out for the summer. The first couple of years there were no flowers, but it finally bloomed.

Ok, thanks. I dind't check where you live, a fantastic place!! 

Carlos

Crocus speciosus

A very reliable performer.  Been here for 25 years growing in a mixed boarder under a Korean Quince tree.

Hi, I was lucky to spend a few days on Ibiza island and of course there's more to it than sangria, paella, sun and beach.

The autumn flowering season was in late summer this year, but there were still some flowers and anyway it's good to find geophytes with seeds...

Prospero obtusifolium, most really tiny with 4-6 flowers, they seemed to be suffering from drought and too high temperatures for this time of the year. P. autumnalis has been reported from the island but I only saw obtusifolium in three spots several km apart.

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Colchicum filifolium (ex Merendera), these seemed all right

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Urginea fugax, only place where it can be seen out of Northern Africa along with Corsica and Sardinia. Very difficult to spot when not in flower or with capsules.

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Allium sp. maybe subhirsutum, growing on a very hard soil with calcareous incrustations just next to the Urginea, which grow on red clay

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Narcissus deficiens, widespread on the island, 99% were shedding seeds or with capsules, I still captured one flower

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Carlos

Last image of N. deficiens:

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Squilla (Urginea) numidica, as I said known in error as maritima in the US, huge stalks and big bulbs with brick-red tunics. Seed set seemed to be affected by drought and heat as well (first two photos in the same spot of the Prospero in the south on a sun-baked hill, third one on the eastern part of the island under pine trees.  One Cneorum tricoccon, very abundant on the Balearics but threatened on the continent, can be seen in the background).

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Finally, the sunset from the southwesternmost tip of the island, overlooking Es Vedrà and Es Vedranell islets.

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Carlos

Hello Carlos,

Thank you for sharing your habitat photos. 

This photo compares three species of Sternbergia. The large flowers are Sternbergia clusiana; the medium-sized one, Sternbergia lutea; the very small one, Sternbergia greuteriana. Photographed in October 2023. The S. lutea was from commercial stock, the others grown here from seed.

Still Narcissus time, this has been distributed as elegans × viridiflorus but if you know both species you'll recognize a typical flower of elegans, only with a greenish hue.Viridiflorus hybrids inherit the cleft corona.

This is KV698 from Al-Hoceima, Morocco, the same area from were Narcissus elegans var. fallax was found and described by the military doctor and botanist Font Quer.

I keep wondering how many pixels must be chosen to post smaller photos, but with an acceptable quality. I prefer bigger images this time, though.

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@Carlos : The upload function resizes to 1024 px on the longest side.

@janemcgary : At least greuteriana is again accepted at least as lutea subspecies and not a pure synonym as I too think the difference is unignorable. 2 questions: 
a) my Sternbergias usually get the flowers with or, more often, after the leaves, while you seem to have bare flowers without leaves - which one is the "typical" behavior?
b) what's that cute tiny colchicum in the picture?

I also have a very small form of Sternbergia lutea, I think from Crete, and it looks different from what I have as greuteriana. In the photo, the absence of leaves with the S. lutea is because I picked a flower and stuck it in the soil as a size comparison; the S. lutea does have leaves at anthesis. S. clusiana flowers before the leaves appear.
The small colchicum is Colchicum cupanii.

I think that small form has been called Sternbergia minoica. All this "lutea complex" should be studied with a molecular approach. 

Carlos

Couple of early flower spikes not yet fully open.

Veltheimia capsensis
Scilla madeirensis
Strumaria truncata

I was puzzled why a nerine flower was sitting on a small pot.  Had someone knocked it off?

Then I found one of my hybrids was growing in the pot and was flowering, right at the surface of the soil.  I hybridize nerines every year and didn't write the date on its label, but it might be from 2018.  I was hoping for a brighter colour.

The pot is 12 cm tall (5 inches).bowdeniiXsarniensis.jpg

hmm, the flower alone looks a lot like Nerine "Flugel" (which was likely meant as "Flügel" = Wing), one of my new ones - no idea if there are sarniensis genes in that one. Other than that, the autumn turns wetter, destroying delicate crocus, but Galanthus reginae-olgae

persists. Last picture fuels the speculation if I'll have my first Tropaeolum tuberosum

Flower Colors:	orange, yellow, red
Flower Season:	late summer
Special:	climber, edible flowers, edible storage organ

flowers this season, last year there was no trace of buds to be found

Quote from: Martin Bohnet on October 25, 2023, 02:27:26 PMLast picture fuels the speculation if I'll have my first Tropaeolum tuberosum

Flower Colors:	orange, yellow, red
Flower Season:	late summer
Special:	climber, edible flowers, edible storage organ

flowers this season, last year there was no trace of buds to be found

As long as you get a bit of passable weather you should get a burst of blooms...mine tend to bloom in surges, different cultivars overlapping as they go in and out of bloom.

Here's what's on show for today.

Veltheimia capsensis
Strumaria truncata
Scilla madeirensis

Hi @Arnold , I'm growing Veltheimia capensis

for its grey-green ruffled leaves. Mine has never flowered. Does yours have the grey-green ruffled leaves? I'm tempted to order seed from the current SX since I only have one (surviving) specimen. I started a batch of seeds a few years back but I was a bad seed mommy. :(  Time to try again.

How old were your Scilla madeirensis

before they first bloomed? Mine I am only this year potting up. My bulbs are still only an inch in diameter. How big did your bulbs get in diameter before they bloomed first? I've put mine in rather large pots in hopes they are like goldfish growing to the size of their pond.

Two things blooming now here are Scilla lingulata (or Hyacinthoides lingulata

if you prefer) and Crocus goulimyi

.

Gastil

The Veltheimia does have the grey green ruffled leaves.  It flowers earlier than the V. bracteata.

The Scilla madeirensis was full size when I got it from  a Longfield nursery in PA.

It's flowered reliably each year early in the season.
The bulbs are at least two inches in diameter.

They spend summers in a basement without water. Our basements here stay at 65 F most of the time.

Variation in Crocus mathewii: These Crocus mathewii, grown from seed from the Michael Kammerlander collection, show two color forms. The white with violet throat is the "iconic" form usually illustrated and sought, but the lavender with violet throat is also frequent and co-occurs with the white in wild populations, which I have seen and photographed. It has been suggested that these are hybrid swarms. Crocus cancellatus subsp. mazziaricus can have a similar violet zone.