Big Box Tigridia Storage

Dennis Szeszko dszeszko@gmail.com
Mon, 24 Jul 2017 10:39:03 PDT
I think it's important to point out that Tigridia species grow in vastly
different climates and that this impacts the manner in which they can be
stored during dormancy.  The species that you mentioned that died during
dry winter storage come from cloud forests or perennially moist
environments.  It's not suprising to hear that they were intolerant of
being severely dessicated.

Some Tigridia species that grow at "low" elevations (below 2000 meters) in
the central part of Mexico are extremely tolerant to drought conditions
since these environments receive no rain for 7 months out of the year, e.g.
T. ehrenbergii, T. mortonii, and T. mexicana.

Tigridia pavonia would likely be better off in a pot during its dormancy
because it would not dry out completely.  It comes from temperate oak-pine
forests that have seasonal monsoon rains and a pronouced dry season.
However, it does not experience the same extremes of drought that the
lowland species do.

As an interesting aside, it's not surprising to hear that rodents love
Tigridia bulbs since humans have been eating them for centuries.  The
Aztecs and other indigenous groups cultivated the plant for ornamental
purposes and to harvest the bulbs for food.  The flower was known as
oceloxochitl (ocelot-flower) and the bulb was known as cacomitl.  "Mitl"
means arrow in the aztec language so the word may refer to the sword-shaped
leaves of the plant.  Apparently the bulbs are edible only once they are
roasted or steamed and they taste like a dry, floury chestnut.



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Message: 2
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2017 21:06:34 +0200
From: Garak <garak@code-garak.de>
To: pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net
Subject: Re: [pbs] Those Box Box Tigridia
Message-ID: <398fd868-8859-c4ec-ae11-68b348fe12c4@code-garak.de>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed

Hi Judy,

As you are talking of box store Tigridias, I'm quite sure you've got T.
pavonia. To my experience those are totally content with being handled
like garden gladiolus, that is they do well with dry storage over 4 or 5
months - even one year old seedlings tolerate this quite well. Out in
the open, they have a 50:50 chance to survive my wet Zone 7 winters -
too little to try it often ;-). btw they are easy from seed and may
flower at the end of their first summer - Though mine usually do so on
their second summer.

I'm not sure if I would keep them in their dry pots - mostly because i'd
guess they get too crowded quickly, with their rate of getting offsets.

As for other Tigridias: I've lost both Tigridia orthantha and
chiapiensis to lifted dry storage. T. vanhouttei  seems to do fine just
the way T. Pavonia does, but may like it in the pot, too - it rarely
makes offsets.

Greetings from Germany (where both T. Pavonia and T. Vanhouttei only
started flowering last week)

Martin
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