Thanks to Lee for providing information about this plant, and reminding us that other "unknown" exciting griffinias are still being found. This species does not bloom for me every year and I experience the same problems as other growers with "stasis"-- leafless, well-rooted bulbs that never get going again. It is often (normally?) perfectly evergreen and this seems to be the way to maintain it, providing even conditions year round under the "intermediate" conditions as defined by orchid growers (can be found easily online). A winter rest in this case means no active growth rather than going leafless. It will grow outdoors in SoCal-- the limiting factor is probably low humidity rather than temperature range. Other griffinias will also tolerate temps to the high 30s (briefly) with leaves on. Dylan Message: 3 Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2020 15:01:18 -0700 From: Lee Poulsen <wpoulsen@pacbell.net> To: Pacific Bulb Society <pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> Subject: Re: [pbs] Griffinia hyacinthina Message-ID: <4EC0AECA-1B45-485D-9A4B-68C954B2DAA5@pacbell.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Dylan is the only person I know who has offered any for sale. I?ve given up trying because the bids get way way too expensive. Dylan seems to have an ideal location in a large greenhouse in which they grow and bloom every year. I got one once long ago from Kevin Preuss back when he was selling all kinds of Griffinia. It grew very nicely the first year, went dormant the next winter and never sprouted the next year. Every year for 3 years I would keep checking to see if it was still in the pot and it was, and it was the same size as always. The 4th year when I checked, it had rotted away at some point. I kept it with all my other Griffinia which grow well, flower, and form offsets, and otherwise seem to like the conditions I have them in. When I first visited Mauro Peixoto?s shade houses in Brazil, and he was showing me all his Hippeastrum and Griffinia species, I asked him if he grew G. hyacinthina. He said yes and took me over to another part of the shade houses and point to a raised bed in the ground. There were dozens of giant bulbs about 2/3 buried but dormant. He said he had great difficulty getting them to sprout. They mostly just sat there dormant. And he hadn?t gotten any of them to flower after the first year he had them when they did. Now his climate is great and all kinds of things grow well on his property. He has a number of large healthy clumps of Worsleya that bloom en masse every year (although getting seeds to mature is much more iffy). All his other Griffinia do well, including the white ones. One day I drove along the coastal highway between S?o Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (which is supposed to be one of the areas it?s native to), and stopped at a couple of nurseries I happened upon along the way and asked (or actually pointed at pictures on my phone of it) if they sold them or even knew about them. Neither place knew about them. What was really cool was visiting Harri Lorenzi?s Jardim Bot?nico Plantarum one weekend with Mauro and a co-worker of mine (we were in Brazil on a business trip), and they showed us a bunch of new Griffinia species they?d collected on recent trips. There was this one amazing huge Griffinia in bloom that was either a larger subspecies of G. hyacinthina, or possibly a new species, that gave me a severe case of plantlust. I haven?t heard if they ever identified it. I?ll see if I can attach an old picture of it. --Lee Poulsen Pasadena, California, USA - USDA Zone 10a Latitude 34?N, Altitude 1150 ft/350 m > On Jul 8, 2020, at 8:22 AM, Nicholas plummer via pbs < pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> wrote: > > FYI, Dylan's Bulbs is currently offering a near-blooming size G. hyacintha > on eBay. Starting bid is $450.00, and bidding closes on Sunday. > > Nick *"Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all."* ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…