PBS Forum

Hello All,
Yes, it is Aspidistra grandiflora. I was so focused on a geophyte flowering without leaves that it did not cross my mind that this strange flower belongs to the Aspidistra leaves which are relatively far away from this flower. And no, the picture is not upside down.
Thank you, David for pointing out how to activate the lens App.
Here is another picture of the whole setting but the flower is barely visible.

Thank you for your help!

Uli 

Dear All,

This unusual flower opened where I planted Typhonium giganteum. But this flower does not at all fit the pictures in the internet. What is this?
Your help is very much appreciated.

Bye for now

Uli

Dear All,

Any climate may have invasive bulbs, in my case it is Oxalis pes-caprae, in other algarvian gardens there is a small white flowered Allium and along the roadside is Watsonia bulbifera in some areas.
To get rid of them I strongly recommend not to try to dig them, this may break up clumps and distribute bulbils. I cover the affected area with woven black plastic which lets air and water through but not the light. The plastic can be covered with mulch. Taking away the light is extremely effective but for the vigorous ones may need more than one growing season. Cut flat compost bags work well, too. For Oxalis pes caprae one season is enough because it has to renew its bulbs every season.
Bye for now 
Uli 

Dear All,

With the onset of warm weather, spring in the Algarve is coming to an end. Among the last flowers are the Californian spring bulbs, very nice.

Gladiolus floribundus

Flower Colors:	white, pink
Climate:	winter rain climate

Helicodiceros/Dracunculus muscivorum

Tropaeolum leptophyllum

Flower Colors:	yellow, patterned
Flower Season:	late spring
Special:	climber

Dichelostemma ida-maiae

Iris spuria

cultivar

Triteleia ixioides

Lachenalia multifolia

, the last one to flower of the genus

Enjoy

Uli

Hello Rimmer,
That is a very beautiful plant, have never seen it or heard of it before.
Uli

Dear All,
Having offered seed of Hippeastrum evansiae

to the curent EU BX, here is a portrait of the plant: relatively small bulbs for a Hippeastrum, stoloniferous, so that the pot is relatively quickly filling with bulbs. But it resents root disturbance. My plant is one clone and during more than 20 years has never set seed. Now, with a second clone it did both ways. H. evansiae is fully decidouus and flowers before the new leaves appear. The relatively small flowers open flat, are slightly asymmetric. They are yellow with a greenish throat, several to a scape, not detectable fragrance. Good bulbs produce two scapes so that a potful gives a good display. The leaves hang downwards and are greyish green and soft, it is best grown warm in filtered sunlight. During growth it needs ample water and fertilzer from time to time, dormancy is totally dry. Like all Amaryllids it is prone to mealy bug infestations. The offered seed is very fresh.
Bye for now,
Uli

Hello Colin,

Thank you very much for your detailed information about Ixia viridiflora. As I have been growing it only since the 2019 autumn sowing, I still cannot comment on its life span. It seems easy to grow in my condition provided it gets plenty of water during growth.
I have a question concerning how you start them  in autumn. In one passage of the text you write that the new shoots emerge from bone dry soil but in another passage you mention a thorough watering in September.
Not only with Ixia I find the decision difficult when to start to water my winter growing bulbs in autumn. I do worry about them getting damaged if they start into growth too early and after that would they be stopped by a new spell of hot weather. 

Bye for now 

Uli 

Limodorum abortivum is an interesting parasitic orchid living with cork oaks in this case but can also use other trees like pine trees for nutrients. It has no chlorophyll and no leaves. The 40cm tall inflorescences appear in unpredictable places in spring, often in small groups. They look like a purple Asparagus sprout at first but then show attractive relatively large purple flowers.

Hello Martin,

With reference to the recent topics concerning new restrictions on seed import into Australia, an Australian group might be vital.

Uli 

Here are some more pictures 

Lachenalia purpureo-caerulea from Silverhill Seed, only one seed germinated. Seems to be one of the last to flower.

A Pelargonium species. Can anybody help me with the name? The leaves look like fine carrot leaves and the tuber is a long woody beet. Summer dormant.


Iris filifolia from Oron Peri seed

Lycaste aromatica. Are orchids geophytes? It has (pseudo-)bulbs and is fully deciduous 

Bye for now 

Uli 

Dear All,

Here are some spring flowers from my garden. Right now I am too busy to go and take pictures in the wild. We have good rain right now so maybe I will take habitat pictures later.

Enjoy 

Uli 

Freesia Hybrid 

Not a geophyte but fascinating Clathrus ruber, a mushroom. I always feel as if it had fallen from another star.....

Allium moly 

Ferraria araneosa

I cannot add more attachments, there will be a second post 

Dear All,


As promised before I would like to update you with my experiments using microwaved pollen on self incompatible plants.
In this case Hippeastrum evansiae. This plant has been flowering for me for more than 20 years and never set seed. It is a stoloniferous bulb, so a big potful is just one clone. (Clone 1)  This year I had a different clone (Clone 2) in flower for the very first time. So comparison is possible between cross pollination and self pollination.
The result is very simple:
All flowers pollinated with microwaved pollen did not set seed, almost all cross pollinated flowers have big seed capsules in both directions and all flowers left unpollinated aborted as well.
Here is the number of flowers in detail
Clone 1: 9 scapes with 20 flowers. Of which 4 flowers were left with no pollination
9 flowers were repeatedly pollinated with microwaved pollen following the procedure described here https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/Microwave
7 flowers were pollinated using pollen of clone 2 of which one aborted, why?
Clone 2: one scape with 2 flowers. Both flowers were pollinated with pollen of clone 1 and have big seed capsules.
Last year I successfully produced one seed pod on clone 1 with its own microwaved pollen but I have no record of the exact details of the procedure, it was not exactly the same as used this year. So.... Many open questions.....

Then there is an unnamed Albuca species (it is not Albuca aurea which sets copious amounts of seed) of which seedlings produced of microwaved pollen are flowering for the very first time. Unfortunately the mother plant is very delayed and in declining condition so that a direct comparison is not possible at this moment. From memory they are identical to the mother. The seedlings appear uniform and very healthy, there are more than these three ones.

The seedlings of Albuca clanwilliamigloria are still growing well but will soon go dormant.

The pictures show the flowering plants of Hippeastrum evansiae  (not a brilliant foto) the flowers in the left upper part are clone 1 and the two flowers on  the lower right side are clone 2. they are slightly different with clone 2 having slightly wavy petals and a green throat

The second picture shows maturing seed capsules. They are big but the camera has oversized them. Not all of them are in the pictures, the 3 capsules on the left are clone 1 and the two on the right are clone 2

The third picture shows the Albuca species, flowering  seedlings.

Dear All,


The form of Ixia viridiflora posted yesterday and today seems to be paler than the one I grow. Mine was raised from an autumn 2019 sowing and it flowered beautifully in its second year. I donated seed to the US BX in 2021. What this plant needs is ample water during growth and flowering and a dry rest only after the leaves have died down. This year the flowers were almost completely ruined by a hot and very windy spell, last year's performance was better.
My seed was purchased from https://www.owlsacreseeds.co.uk/ixia-viridiflora after a discussion on this list. Owls Acre stated that the corms are short lived and new plants should be raised from seed regularly. They also stated that they carefully selected the seed bearing plants. 
The enclosed picture is from 2021. Do you see the beetles? I checked the flowers yesterday. The center appears black but is in fact of very dark blue.
The second picture shows seedlings from a November 2021 sowing. They are in a 20cm pot and the tallest ones are 30cm tall, still growing. They will not be repotted until after flowering next year.

Bye for now 

Uli 

Dear All,


The article describing the microwaving of pollen to overcome self incompatibility was put into the Wiki by Robin and David. Thank you very much to both of you for editing and formatting. The title was somewhat misleading and has now been changed. Thank you, Tim, to pointing this out.
I am at present using this technique on Cyrtanthus falcatus

for the first time and again on Hippeastrum evansiae

. It has failed on an Aloe species but with the Aloe I had the impression that there was almost no pollen.
I will keep you updated and I am most interested in your feedback. I am very sure that this method can be improved.
Here is the link to the Wiki again.  https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/Microwave

Bye for now

Uli

Impressions from my collection