Veltheimia and TOW

Mary Sue Ittner msittner@mcn.org
Mon, 09 Dec 2002 21:52:49 PST
Dear All,

Everyone who took the time to vote said they wanted a topic of the week. 
That is something we can talk about in addition to anything anyone else 
wants to talk about. We are not limited to talking about the topic of the 
week. I hope some of you will talk about your favorite books, but it is 
impossible to know which topics will be favorites.

Veltheimia is not the topic of the week but we can talk about it. I brought 
it up because I was offering seeds and wanted to report that I found late 
winter a better time to start them. My Veltheimia bracteata usually starts 
into growth just like my South Africa bulbs from winter rainfall areas. It 
goes dormant in summer and in September or October the beautiful leaves 
appear. So that led me to think I should start seeds then. When we 
discussed this on the IBS forum some people reported theirs were evergreen. 
There were a few who felt they bloomed better if allowed to have a dormant 
period and if watered too much in a hot humid summer some reported they had 
lost theirs to rot. Maybe Rhoda will repeat what it is like for them in 
their native habitat. I have some great Veltheimia saved files from the IBS 
forum for anyone who is new to this genus and would like to have them.

Doug gave me another Veltheimia capensis this year. He has been most 
generous. It looks just like my Sil seedlings except it is much bigger and 
has more leaves. So I expect finally to be able to compare it to V. 
bracteata. I may get more rain than it is happy with since they are always 
described as coming from dry areas. I am experimenting with some sheltered 
from the rain and some that are not. So far we haven't had much rain so 
they haven't really been put to the test. And the birds are leaving them 
alone this year so far.

We set our forum up not to allow attachments of any kind. But Doug you can 
send your images to one of the images lists and tell us where to look at them.

Mary Sue





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