At 23:54 +1000 9/23/03, Paul Tyerman wrote: >Obviously they like multiplying for us over here in Aus eh Rob? I can't >say I mind at all <grin>. Don't you and Rob live in parts of Australia that are cooler than most of the rest of the country? The reason I ask is that I have two accessions of the species version of Tigridia pavonia that I got from Yucca Do. (I think Tony Avent of Plant Delights currently offers one of them.) I put a picture of one of them up on the wiki <http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/…>. When I bought them, the catalog description said that they were collected at a much lower and hotter location than the ones that formed the basis of the Dutch trade cultivars. And that therefore they could tolerate much warmer summers than the Dutch varieties. They said that their accessions would easily grow and thrive in the Central Texas climate they are located in as opposed to the Dutch bulbs that never do well there. Could this be a reason some of us have had so much trouble with the standard varieties? I've noticed that most (but not all) of those who said they easily grow them come from climates with cooler summers (or at least cooler nights) than the rest of us. >I too would like to hear about seed sources for >the other species that Alberto mentioned. Great intro Alberto!! If only I had joined some of these organizations earlier, I would have known about Southwest Native Seeds in Tucson much sooner. They haven't listed any Tigridias (or color forms of Bessera) for the past 3 years, even though they have listed some interesting things. I guess they only head down into Mexico to collect every so many years and not every year like they do other areas. (It seems to me that bulbs from Latin America are the least easily obtainable of all the regions in the world. Thad Howard's book on Bulbs for Warm Climates is too difficult to read sometimes because of the unfulfillable bulblust it induces in me.) At 0:12 +1000 9/24/03, Paul Tyerman wrote: >If people are interested I will try to set some seed on various of the >Tigridias this year so I can donate to the BX. That is assuming that >people are interested if I am successful? Would people only be interested >in the species, or in the hybrids as well? Yes, yes, yes! Both species and hybrids. (Some of us are not species purists...) Especially any seed of the pure colored (unmarked) T. pavonias all you Australasians seem to have, but I've never seen offered here in the States. -- --Lee Poulsen Pasadena area, California, USDA Zone 9-10
