March 2024

[Wylie]

Here is a nice way to start the month, Ferraria crispa.

[Too Many Plants!]

Here is a nice way to start the month, Ferraria crispa.

Love 'em!!

[Too Many Plants!]

One of my FAVS... Sparaxis Grandiflora sp. Violacea

[Martin Bohnet]

 Beautiful Sparaxis - love how robust it looks!

Meanwhile spring is marching on for me - let's start with two EX-Items, as we have opened the donation phase this weekend. First is EX07_052, Oxalis "PomPom" from Liga Plata. Second one is EX07_176, Chasmanthe aethiopica

from Marian Vanneste. A small spike, but I had tried Chasmanthe before and never had it flowering at all, so maybe it's my unusually warm winter, or it is just because of the huge bulbs Marian donates.

Not from EX, but also potted is Xenoscapa fistulosa

, another one from the "cute and tiny" faction. Out in the garden is a very early form of Corydalis solida

, Hyacinthella lazulina

and, last but not least the gray form of Iris tuberosa in flower.

[Arnold]

Gladiolus tristis

Lachenalia thomasiae  I could easily be convinced it's something else.

[Carlos]

The 'medium-season' strain of the quite robust, big- flowered, bulbocodium-type Narcissus with narrow and upright to arching leaves, widely distributed in Portugal, and received from Uli, has started blooming (on the right, and at the bottom). It is widely misidentified as obesus, even by Portuguese naturslists, but it is not, and one name given to it seems to be N. bulbocodium subsp. tenuifolius.





On the left, and at the top in the second photo, another robust bulbocodium from northern central Spain in euro-Siberian climate, growing along streams and in wwet meadows, with much wider and stouter leaves which are not so erect, and flowers more like 'normal bulbocodium'. A name which was undoubtedly published for it is  Narcissus bulbocodium subsp. validus, but it lacked a Latin or English diagnose and it is not 'validus' (sorry for the joke). It might be Corbularia conspicua, but when one enters Corbularia territory gets immediately lost in a sea of obscure, short descriptions in Latin from late 17th century or the 18th, with phrases like "it comes from Spain, it comes from the Pyrenees". At least Salisbury included texts in "olde Englifh", which are fun to decipher.

So I still don't know which name is correct, but I will try.

Here the flowers, 'validus/conspicuus" on the right now, tenuifolius on the left.



Hoping for some rain...

Carlos

[Wylie]

It's Hippeastrum time and leading the way is Hippeastrum papilio.

[Too Many Plants!]

I know these are more common, but I still enjoy them in the garden...

 

 

[Too Many Plants!]

Ferraria Crispa (I believe), Romulaea Setifolia, and Moraea Ciliata. This is a much bigger flower display on my M. Ciliata than ever before! It's taken several years to get to this size flower display...maybe I'll actually get some seed set this year?



 

[Emanuele Mura]

Chasmanthe Floribunda in full flowering. Quite common around here and a bit weedy but in mass finds it's raison d'etre, doesn't it?

[Too Many Plants!]

More common garden bulbs...Freesia something ?





 

[Carlos]

Here goes another one with a tricky nomenclature, a favourite of mine. Sorry, long post.

Today's plant was placed peacefully in Scilla for almost two centuries (from 1800 to 1998).

Rafinesque, for me one of the greatest 'unfairly underrated splitters who were right', disgregated Scilla in many small to rather big genera, often because if presence / absence of bracts and/or bracteoles. He created
Tractema in 1837. It has bracts, but no bracteoles. But the plant remained in Scilla either as a species or lumped in S. verna until Austrian prof. Speta, another underrated visionary, resuscitated Rafinesque's genera in 1998.

Ok, but Tractema verna is an Euro-Siberian plant, and the plant shown here occurs in the Mediterranean climate,  from coastal areas on the Atlantic shore on sandy soils, often in Pinus pinea clear forests, with Romulea clusiana and gaditana, etc. to inland oak forests in Cádiz and Málaga provinces at 800 m or more. This plant of mine was accidentally collected in Chiclana, Cádiz, Spain by a friend  when looking for Squilla (Urginea/Drimia).



It was first called Scilla ramburei, which is wrong as it honours Rambur, so it should be ramburii. 

A second, smaller species has perfumed flowers and was first called Scilla odorata, type locality the Algarve, at  Lagos and Cape Sao Vicente, with Narcissus obesus and Hyacinthoides vicentina (mauretanica?), Portugal.

Problems: 

The Portuguese botanist Rubim Almeida was the one to write the chapter on Scilla for Flora Iberica, the latest work on the flora of the Iberian peninsula and the Balearic islands.

He identified wrongly a population of Tractema verna as odorata and as he found no difference with true verna (evident) he synonymized odorata with verna (as verna subsp. verna).

In addition to this, he ignored the latest molecular evidence and did not accept Tractema as a distinct genus. This might not have been entirely his fault, as the editors have been consistently on the conservative side since the work was begun in the late eighties.

So well...

Carlos

[Uli]

Had a little walk today during cool and rainy weather in the Barrocal. Which is the low land between the coast or littoral and the serra, the mountain range in the hinterland of the Algarve. Barrocal soil in general is terra rossa, the bedrock is limestone. Rich native flora. I was searching for Peonia broteroi and found it, but still in bud. It is a rare plant. On the way I came across many Orchis italica. 

[Too Many Plants!]

Here goes another one with a tricky nomenclature, a favourite of mine. Sorry, long post.

Today's plant was placed peacefully in Scilla for almost two centuries (from 1800 to 1998).

Rafinesque, for me one of the greatest 'unfairly underrated splitters who were right', disgregated Scilla in many small to rather big genera, often because if presence / absence of bracts and/or bracteoles. He created
Tractema in 1837. It has bracts, but no bracteoles. But the plant remained in Scilla either as a species or lumped in S. verna until Austrian prof. Speta, another underrated visionary, resuscitated Rafinesque's genera in 1998.

Ok, but Tractema verna is an Euro-Siberian plant, and the plant shown here occurs in the Mediterranean climate,  in coastal areas on the Atlantic shore on sandy soils, often in Pinus pinea clear forests, with Romulea clusiana and gaditana, etc. It has perfumed flowers and was first called Scilla odorata, type locality the Algarve, at  Lagos  and Cape Sao Vicente, with Narcissus obesus and Hyacinthoides vicentina (mauretanica?), Portugal. This plant of mine was accidentally collected in Chiclana, Cádiz, Spain by a friend  when looking for Squilla (Urginea/Drimia).



The second plant was first called Scilla ramburei, which is wrong as it honours Rambur, so it should be ramburii. It grows inland on 'normal soils' up to 800 m and probably more. Type locality: Antequera, Málaga province.

Problems: they were both lumped under Scilla verna as subspecies, and in Flora Iberica they have been swapped, so 'ramburii' is applied to the coastal plant on sandy soils, and 'odorata' for the inland plant. But I looked the original descriptions and types up and there is no doubt. Portugal 1, Spain 0, this time. I was told by a Portuguese biologist.

Carlos

Beautiful!

[Too Many Plants!]

Sparaxis Tri-color waking up...



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