Calostemma was pergola, was: Re: It's driving me crazy

Lee Poulsen wpoulsen@pacbell.net
Sat, 26 Nov 2011 10:08:36 PST
On Nov 26, 2011, at 4:24 AM, Shelley Gage wrote:
> 
> They don't set many seeds so you'd need a field of them to have any number of seed and they are very fleshy so don't keep very well. Someone else might know of a seed source. I have grown only the purple and for a brief time the white (which I believe is rare) although it never flowered and went underground and hasn't been seen since.
> Shelley
> 

I think you should contact the following three guys (I think they're all on the PBS list):
Paul Tyerman in Canberra
Rob Hamilton in Tasmania
Jim Lycos in the Blue Mountains

I think I recall Paul, long ago, posting some pictures somewhere of a number of different colored Calostemma (purple, white, yellow, purple and white, yellow and white) that he saw blooming in a botanical garden somewhere in Australia.
And Rob and Jim have traveled together several times hunting the different types of yellow Crinums and have also found all kinds of yellow and purple Calostemma as well as combination-colored varieties as well. They might be able to tell you of possible sources for seeds or maybe where to try looking for seeds in the wild if there are no commercial or mail order sources.

It is surprising that nurseries there don't grow and offer much of the native Australian bulb flora. But the same is true here in California; you have to go to botanical garden plant sales to find most of the native California bulb flora. If you want Dutch grown bulbs however, there are more than plenty of those offered! I noticed during all my travel to South America the past two years that the same seemed to be true in Argentina, Chile, and even Brazil; if you wanted daffodils or tulips or hyacinths or Dutch hybrid hippeastrums, those were easy to find. I don't think I ever saw any native Argentine or Brazilian bulbs offered for sale at the nurseries there, ever.

I wonder why that is?

--Lee Poulsen
Pasadena, California, USA - USDA Zone 10a
Latitude 34°N, Altitude 1150 ft/350 m




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