I think the conversations died out because no one has been able to successfully grow the plant to maturity in a pot. I think it’s very easy to germinate. I’ve germinated it successfully every time I’ve tried it (about 3 or 4 different occasions). And the seedlings grow quite well during their first winter. Once they go dormant, there are all these small bulbs in the pot. But on every attempt except for one, when autumn rolled around again, nothing would start growing the second winter, and there were no bulblets present in the pots after I dumped them out to see if they were still dormant. The last time I tried it, I decided to keep the dry dormant pot out where the sun would hit it and heat it up all summer. I also used a very deep (“tree”) pot but with a small cross-section. That attempt the second winter there were 3 bulbs left that sprouted and grew. But by the 3rd winter they were gone. I also once was able to purchase a mature bulb from a rescue mission where a housing development, I think, bulldozed up a bunch of the bulbs. I planted that in a very sandy mix in a large tree pot and kept it dry out in the sun all summer. It never leafed out the following winter, but in the spring I dumped out the pot and the bulb was still there, but smaller. Same thing happened the following winter and the spring after that the bulb was even smaller. It was clear this was a case of “dwindling” and eventually the bulb disappeared without ever having sprouted. I read somewhere that the Theodore Payne native plant foundation is closing in on figuring out how to successfully grow it in captivity. But I don’t know any of the details about that. [I would like a copy of your draft paper.] --Lee Poulsen Pasadena, California, USA - USDA Zone 10a Latitude 34°N, Altitude 1150 ft/350 m > On Sep 18, 2017, at 1:25 PM, Don <lagoondon@gmail.com> wrote: > > I am doing a citizen science research project on this plant in Borrego Springs, CA. I notice that there has been a lot of discussion about the plant in past years (2005-2010) but not much recently. This past spring was excellent for the plant in the wild, and approx. 165 of them came up in my yard, as well as elsewhere within the range of the species. Of the plants in my yard, roughly half bloomed, and roughly half of those produced seed. I counted the number of leaves per plant, correlated this with flowering and fruiting, and excavated 12 bulbs from my yard to be weighed and measured. If you are interested in the details I can send you a draft of the paper I have written. This coming winter I will be doing my own germination studies and experimenting with "forcing" some bulbs by means of irrigation to see if that works. > > What I am looking for is any information about recent efforts to grow the plant, such as success or failure with germination, translocation of bulbs, or anything else that seems interesting. If you respond to pbs@lists.ibiblio.org, please also send a copy to my personal email address, don@rideout.net so that I will be sure to receive it. I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks. > > Don Rideout > Borrego Springs, CA > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…