Schizostylis/Hesperantha

Mary Sue Ittner msittner@mcn.org
Wed, 11 Aug 2004 07:24:55 PDT
Dear Mark S.,

You asked about Schizostylis coccinea and the name for it. In South Africa 
this genus of one species has been sunk into Hesperantha. The main 
difference was in the habit of the plant as the flowers and leaves are very 
similar. Most of the species in this genus produce corms and have a 
definite dormant period (summer or winter depending on the species). 
Hesperantha coccinea on the other hand is often found in wet places and can 
be almost evergreen and spreads by rhizomes as Shirley has indicated. I 
found it to be invasive in a wet California garden and barely hanging on in 
my dry garden. Goldblatt and Manning did not think this difference was 
enough to make this into a separate genus.

Alan Kennedy did a topic of the week for us on Schizostylis. He lives in 
Scotland and is doing dna to see if you can differentiate the cultivars 
this way. I gather in the UK they may still by calling them Schizostylis. 
To read his post from our archives:

http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbslist/old.php/…

Mary Sue


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