Mary Sue, I just want to thank you for your heroic efforts to keep the wiki current and accurate. We are indebted to you (and others that contribute to the wiki). A sincere thanks, Mike On Fri, Apr 15, 2022 at 11:36 AM Mary Sue Ittner via pbs < pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> wrote: > I've mentioned before that I find identifying the Lachenalia species > really challenging from Graham Duncan's book. It has been a nightmare > trying to figure out where to put all the previous photos added to the > wiki under Lachenalia aloides before his book was published and it went > from one species to eight. There are a number of reasons why that is > impossible. In the first place he divides them into the dimensions of > the inner tepals, three with tepals 14 to 20 mm, and the rest 23 mm or > longer. There is no way to determine that from a photo. The other > problem with that is when do you measure. Those of us who have grown > Lachenalia understand that the dimensions change dramatically as does > the color of the tepals over time. There are more measurements needed to > distinguish between Lachenalia thunbergii and Lachenalia callista and > between Lachenalia aloides and Lachenalia quadricolor. In the category > for inner tepals 23 mm or longer in his key he includes "outer tepals > not bright red or orange-red" when photos and paintings in his book of > those species show what I'd call orange red to red outer tepals, at > least for part if not all of their flowering time. If you are dividing > something that changes color over time by color when do you decide to > make that determination. > > I asked Arnold to take picture of the plant he received from Croft as > Lachenalia callista over time to show the sequence. You can see it here: > > https://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… > This is for a species according to the key with outer tepals not bright > red or orange-red, inner tepals bright yellow or greenish yellow, inner > tepals 32-33 mm long, apices widely spreading > > Measurements are needed to tell the difference between L. aloides and L. > quadricolor. Those two are the ones we puzzle the most over on this > list. L. quadricolor has outer tepals shorter (10 to 11 mm) and L. > aloides longer (15 to 17 mm). So we probably all need to measure at some > unknown time during the flowering. I don't think you can really go by > the fact that one might start flowering a few weeks before the other > since the flowering period in long enough to include both and besides > for those of us growing plants outside of where they are found in nature > when they start to flower depends on our conditions and also the origin > of the seed. L. quadricolor has inner tepals that are slightly flared > and deep purple magenta and L. aloides inner tepals with broad red or > purplish red apices with white margins. Remembering when we discussed > our favorite bulbs by color, color is viewed very subjectively. What is > the difference between purple magenta and purplish red? If you look at > iNaturalist for L. aloides you will see photos all over the spectrum and > the white margins hard to see. > > Having said all this I have spent far too long trying to figure this out > and add a page to the wiki like Mike Mace did for Moraea tripetala when > it was split up. I've put it off for years. His book was published in > 2012 and I guess I was hoping some of the changes would never be > accepted. Creating this page has made my head spin. Here is my attempt > and it is entirely possible that some of the photos I have added to > represent the different species could be wrong. > https://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… > > As long as I am mentioning my struggles with this and how we all view > color, I find L. vanzyliae to be turquoise and that actually makes it > really easy to distinguish. This is how the key describes it: > Inner tepals translucent white; median keels bright green, broad above > > Mary Sue > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… > Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> > _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net>