PBS Forum

Hi everyone,

Has anyone seen something like this on Haemanthus leaves? I am not sure what is causing these spots. The spots seen against light on the underside of the leaf do not correspond to the dry linear breakages on the top surface - do I have two issues here?

This is Haemanthus albiflos grown from a bulb originally from South Africa. It took a while to start growing but once started it looked really healthy, and recently started getting these spots and lines.

The damage looks like mechanical damage rather than anything else or some form of damage caused by uneven growing conditions.
I certainly would not worry.

H. albiflos is usually (atomic) bomb-proof, so I would think it unlikely to anything but "teething" problems as a result of the move S to N.

I agree with the above opinion. Does not look like a virus infection. Did the leaf rub against something, a spiny plant, cactus for example?
A different point: are you sure that this is albiflos? Only one leaf? My albiflos are evergreen and the leaves always come in pairs. This looks like a fresh leaf of a winter grower. 
Uli 

Quote from: Uli on October 27, 2023, 12:25:06 AMThis looks like a fresh leaf of a winter grower.

Looking again - a good point Uli - it does not look like albiflos. The neck of the bulb also looks wrong, and the leaf too tapered, and too shiny and green (albiflos leaves tend to be more matt and with a more greyish tone). The leaf stub at the top of the neck also looks very like an abscission layer rather than where it has been cut, and, so far as I am aware, it is also pretty much always evergreen unless seriously badly treated.

Albiflos varies a huge amount, but probably not like that.

On the plus side, if it is not albiflos, you should have paid quite a bit less than what it is worth. (Albiflos is generally very cheap, unless the variegated/spotted form.)

Hi CG100 and Uli,

No, I'm positive this is H. alibiflos. They removed the leaves and most roots before sending it to me. It looked like an offset which was originally under the soil surface (I think), as it wasn't green at all, and the shape was quite elongated and not exactly symmetrical. I would imagine it will now 'shape up' that it is on its own - that is if it grows successfully.

The leaf is still growing. I got it in April, it didn't do anything for a very long time, to the point where I moved it away thinking it was not going to grow, but then it started growing this leaf. The stubs from the cut off leaves have grown a bit too. Actually they have grown first, and then the new leaf appeared.

I don't have anything spiky and no other plant was ever touching it. It first only had one of those breakouts on the top surface, and then slowly and gradually it got more. I feel they get longer as the leaf grows. The spots visible from the bottom I only noticed recently.

Regarding it only growing one leaf, I also noticed that in Brunsvigias. I currently have three, they are all from South Africa, and they all only developed one leaf at first, the second one only after a considerable amount of time.

I attach another photo of my plant and one from Kew and one from RHS Wisley. I feel like they are always quite shiny CG100? I've never seen a matt one.

I have grown a handful of different H. a. for well over 40 years and none have had bright green and shiny leaves. That said, it may easily be something to do with how things reproduce any any one screen.

Brunsvigia and Haemanthus, and especially H. a., are more different than very different. Within each genus, normal growth is also very different from species to species, even from plant to plant - I have two H. coccineus from the same location that started into growth maybe 4-5 weeks ago - one has one leaf, one has two, all leaves around the same size and around 70-80-90mm long at the moment.

Send some photos of your Haemanthus CG100 if you have any. I am always curious what other people's plants look like. 

Where are you based?

I can't be bothered to deal with the hassle of loading pic's to the www. Sorry

Lots of pic's appear of what are obviously at least a few different clones in the UK, on EBay. That said, how does cultivation detail affect growth?
Looking at the plants here now, they are quite a bit different to the first one (long gone), that I owned, that had very short (by comparison) leaves that were much greyer-green.

I am in the E midlands.

This looks far more like my first plant, although it is in Canada - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/195548104471?hash=item2d87934717:g:y-EAAOSwI7RjuN-6&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAAwNtz22p9lAZcgDncwYL5MnFaOjsFlpZqQKASlVsgOqMgsh6yM9qQIL98yJjOvdahyU1fo4JoT5VnU0V%2FI7EIT56D2Ac3zb2oN2zx64vamWDbAMUj1f9u1RM5eSJu5CCgt6I8zwREqGN0svIH5UP1tXoVAjPLWwYJgQXH4uEPihvlvdVAOLIM%2FxrzHpuQu6oG6YDR%2BmktAw7lgtjYspvCPoOG2rw%2FmAXIK%2BM%2BLoXmWxx%2F4PSGF3xPhRf14LvhMIZiGw%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR4ydiqHxYg