PBS Forum

I was still at school when plant communication got reasonable coverage (so pre 1977).

They fixed lie detectors (basically conductivity sensors) to a single plant and a selection of people, some of who had been asked to rip a plant to pieces, well away from the study plant. The people were asked individually to stand close to the study plant and all that had destroyed a plant got a response, and one person who had not also elicited a response.

After some investigation, the "odd one out" was found to have cut his lawn earlier that day.

Or so the article claimed.

More recently, a TV programme showed broadly similar experiments with trees in woodland.

I have one bulb in flower, one in bud at the moment, grown as rubrocyanea from Silverhill seed. I'll wait for the second to open so that I can compare before commenting about them.

Iridaceae, Strelitzia42, Goldblatt and Manning, gives detailed descriptions and how to tell rubrocyanea and regia apart. I'll copy this here when I have a moment. Unfortunately, the book has a pic' only of rubrocyanea.

Apologies - B. rubrocyanea was where I was thinking....

So far as I am aware, various sources don't mention much if anything by way of variation in the species, so maybe some hybrid influence???

Most Albuca with spiral leaves that are at all common in cultivation have threadlike leaves but how twisted they are is influenced by cultivation conditions - how much water, how much sun. In fact, you can find comment about pretty much all contorted foliage species of bulbs in general, being similarly affected.

How about Fusifilum, or Trachyandra, or any of the other genera that get amalgamated and split from Albuca regularly?

Quote from: Too Many Plants! on April 02, 2024, 02:03:48 PMI believe this is my first flowering for these Albuca Namaquensis.

A. namaquensis has threadlike leaves and usually only a rather small number of flowers per pedicel.

Pic's 4072 and 4073 - B. purpureacyanea (spelling very likely wrong), or a hybrid that strongly favours that species.

The production and selling of seed as certain cultivars is probably less of a problem in many bulbs as growth from seed is often slow or very slow, although crossing of plants to produce seed in the search for new garden-worthy cultivars and hybrids, is obviously still very important.
Garden-produced seed in particular, being sold named as the parent (even assuming the parent is what it is thought to be), is often mightily misleading in many plants, not least herbaceous species - 3 years after sowing - "hmmmmmmmm, that should have a red flower, not orange".

In the case of tete a tete, it is sterile, so changes have occured through vegetative propagation.

I would echo Martin's comment about longevity of cultivars/hybrids.

To take a very simple, common example - Narcisuss tete a tete, a complicated hybrid containing a lot of N. cyclamineus.

I first came across this plant around 20-25 years ago, (although it was bred in the 1940's), when it was/became an expensive and desirable curiosity, still sold in small numbers only, as dry bulbs or potted and in flower, not by the (10's)kg as they are today.

All of those plants back then had a wonderful scent and were very small. Neither applies to what is sold as the plant today (or at least so in the UK).

Quote from: David Pilling on March 20, 2024, 05:26:40 PMPoland's 'Heart of the Garden' crowned Tree of the Year

Of all plants, trees must be by far the most difficult to appreciate in photographs. There are a couple of this beech and one makes it look of no major consequence, the other is very different.

There are some fabulous beeches in the UK, not all of them huge. Some are very gnarled and stunted as a consequence of where they grow.

A couple of generous waterings while in active growth with tomato fertiliser (high potash) will transform them, even if congested, even within two flowering seasons - poor this, excellent next.

Apply with a rose, as fine as you can find, as a lot can be absorbed through the leaves.

A once a year regime is wise.

I have no idea what it is, and am no fan at all of cultivated ones, although I do like some/most of the hardy small species. But that looks impressive, whatever it is.

Variegation is a reduced amount of chlorophyll, so variegated plants cannot photosynthesise as much as totally green ones, so they grow slower. In outdoor plants in particular, the lack of chlorophyll may also sometimes lead to scorching.
Slow growth is compensated for in some plants, especially cacti and succulents, by grafting, as the stock will photosythesise as normal. Indeed, a few varieties lack chlorophyll almost or absolutely entirely, so would never grow unless grafted.

Many plants (possibly all?) are variegated due to virus infection and there is lots of debate how deleterious the virus infection alone, is to plant growth etc.

A very few years ago, an exceedingly highly variegated Acanthus was introduced in the UK - "Tasmanian Angel" - leaves are/were almost entirely cream/pinkish-cream, just splashes of green. Even plants offered for sale were frequently scorched and the one that I bought, even though in a very shady position, with filtered light, never thrived. The orginal plant is a curio of no major use apart from making competant nurseries, lots of money, although plants offered as this name now, seem to carry far, far more chlorophyll.

Quote from: Uli on March 13, 2024, 02:14:09 PMThe spiraling of Albuca spiralis leaves very much depends on the growing conditions,

And clone, but there is usually some spiralling. With so many broadly similar albuca species, it would take a novice with the genus, most of a lifetime to determine if that is A. s. or not.

Commercial nursery A. s. will almost certainly be grown either geographically far enough south to maximise curl and minimise costs, or grown further north under lights that maximise curl.

Purple form of Crinum asiatica (asiaticum?)

I am almost as guilty as the rest, but hobby growers seem almost never to use the traditional methods used for bulking up bulb stocks.

A great deal, almost all in all probability, of increasing of commercial stocks is now done via tissue culture, but traditional methods were scooping, scoring, scaling and various forms of leaf cuttings. The traditional methods are not exactly fast, overall, but they can produce large numbers of small plants, fast.

Quote from: Wylie on March 02, 2024, 02:45:10 AMI have been wondering how I could arrange an exchange for a certain bulb I have that just produced offsets. It requires a different bulb that it not closely related to to produce seeds,

Unless you know where your bulb came from and that there are or should be other genetically different bulbs available, it often turns out that the very few plants of a species in cultivation, are the same clone.
Often, the only way to be certain that plants are different clones, is if they are seed-grown and/or seed is available.

I don't believe that the (millions upon millions of) snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) appearing in UK woodlands have ever been checked, but they very seldon set seed and this has been a cause of speculation that all are very closely related, perhaps the same clone, that was introduced hundreds/thousands of years ago.

The PBS webpage for the species is very helpful.

Pasithea | Pacific Bulb Society

It is an uncommon UK garden plant - it is offered by a few nurseries selling garden plants rather than ones meant for indoor cultivation.
It naturally grows acoss much of Chile from sea level to high elevations.