Dear All, I don't think any of the Oxalis experts answered Lauw's question about Uli's plants he got in Mexico. I don't have the Salter monograph which I understand is the best source of information about Oxalis so I don't know how many Oxalis species are found naturally in Mexico although I imagine there are some. There are quite a few from South America aren't there? We even have five taxa native to California and eight others growing in California that are not native including one native to Mexico and several native to South Africa and South America. The one Uli shared with the IBS BX and with me that was identified by one of his sources as Oxalis bowiei looks like the pictures of that species I have seen on the Internet and sounds like the description of that plant in the RHS Manual of Bulbs. That plant is native to South Africa. I would just expect that it could be easily grown in Mexico. After all Ernie seems to have collected seed of Habranthus tubispathus in South Africa. Most people think Amaryllis belladonna is native to California and Oxalis pes-caprae too since there is so much of it so just because he found it there doesn't mean it didn't originate somewhere else. It is interesting that it is quite happy growing on a Mediterranean cycle even though that wouldn't be its patten in nature. My husband took some picture of it in bloom and I have one from last year so I will post them to the AB_Images list and to the Bulbs_Images list too. And for Ann Marie he took a picture of what we grow as Oxalis zeekoevleyensis so I will send that one too. Diana once asked what the storage organ of Oxalis is and I noticed that in Cape Plants they dodge that by calling them geophytes. Diana also said Oxalis were relatively easy to change from one hemisphere to another. Could they just be plants that can be brought into growth at time different than they would be growing in their native habitat by manipulating when they get water? Mary Sue Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2002 08:14:45 +0200 From: Lauw de Jager <dejager@bulbargence.com> Reply-To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pacificbulbsociety@lists.mcn.org> Organization: Bulb'Argence X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [fr] (Macintosh; U; PPC) X-Accept-Language: fr MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Pacific Bulb Society <pacificbulbsociety@lists.mcn.org> Subject: Re Oxalis question References: <17uh8Z-0qlSqnC@fwd01.sul.t-online.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: <pacificbulbsociety@lists.mcn.org> Precedence: Bulk X-pstn-levels: (C75.3595 M99.8512 P95.9108 S27.9194 ) X-UIDL: >H!"!99!!-()!!'HN!! Johannes-Ulrich Urban a *crit . > The plants I distributed under the name of Oxalis bowiei are defintely from Mexico and not South African. (unless two very different and very knowlegeable donors made the same mistake, who knows?) Dear Uli, I grow this Oxalis here (came from a garden on the Cote d'Azur), and does vey well in a mediterranean cycle. This is the first time I hear a statement that some Oxalis may orginate from Mexico (not a mediterraean climate) Could some Oxalis experts amongst us verify the origin of this species as I have it noted as coming from South Africa. Look forward to hearing froml you. -- Lauw de Jager BULB'ARGENCE, 30300 Fourques, France Région Provence/Camargue; (Climat zone 9a Mediterranean) Site http//http://www.bulbargence.com/ "GUIDE POUR BULBES MÉDITERRANÉENS" 116 pages, 400 photos, prix 10 E CATALOGUE D'ÉTÉ' (SUMMERCATALOG) est disponible, EXPEDITION bulbes continuera jusqu'à mi-octobre (espèces à floraison automnale sont replantées)