Alstroemeria philippiana on wiki

Roy M. Sachs rmsachs@ucdavis.edu
Mon, 10 May 2004 14:18:12 PDT
>I have just added a picture of Alstroemeria philippiana to the wiki:
>http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…
>
>I sowed 114 seeds of F & W 10575 last December in my warm dining 
>room, and they surprised me by germinating in nine days.  They grew 
>fast, sending long shoots along the window sill.  They are each over 
>a metre long, and one has a single flower at the very end, 19 weeks 
>from germination, 20 weeks from sowing.
>
>Only a quarter to a third of the seeds seem to have germinated. The 
>whole lot are in a single pot.  I moved them up to bigger pots a 
>couple of times, expecting to separate them after they went dormant, 
>but I never expected such speedy growth.
>
>This is a desert plant, primed to grow fast as soon as it gets 
>rained on, which is a rare occurrence in its home - Atacama/Coquimbo 
>area, Coastal Semi-Mediterranean Desert Zone.
>
>A lot of its leaves are drying.  I wonder what it will do after 
>ripening its seed.  On the desert, would it die back, leaving its 
>rhizomes waiting years for the next rainfall?  Or does it act 
>essentially as an annual?


When I grew A. philippiana it behaved as a perennial (in the 
greenhouse), but I was not able to divide the rhizome mass and clone 
the species.

Roy


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