yellow flowers

[Diane Whitehead]

These slightly scented yellow flowers are currently in bloom.  The petals are 1.5 cm long, and the whole flower stem and leaves are about 35 cm long.  The very narrow leaves have a deep groove along the entire length.

When I dumped the pot out a couple of years ago to check for bulbs, I found no bulbs, but lots of circling roots.  The root tips are poking out of the holes in the bottom of the pot.

[Uli]

Hello Diane,

Looks like Albuca shawii to me. Have you gently rubbed the foliage? Albuca shawii has fragrant leaves. But I have also had identical looking plants without any detectable scent from their leaves.

[CG100]

@Uli is almost certainly correct - the leaves should be slightly hairy, slightly sticky and angular - to me they smell of turpentine and all you need to do is very gently brush aginst them to smell it - if I reach past it and there is the slightest of disturbance of the foliage, I can smell turpentine. Flowers on my clone here have a good citrus scent, better/stronger than "slightly".

It may be a common(ish) plant in cultivation, but it is so for very good reason. It is even generous with seed too. One of my favourites.

[Diane Whitehead]

Thank you both.  Yes, the leaves are slightly sticky and smell like pinched spruce needles.

I've just checked, and I have sown seeds of lots of albucas.   aurea, canadensis, namaquensis, rupestris, shawii, spiralis.  I can't find any labels, though.

[CG100]

In my experience -
A. aurea is uncommon in cultivation. The real species is very attractive and a modest size.
A. namaquensis seems to be confused with A. polyphylla. The real species is like shawii but with twisted leaves. The latter is a fabulous plant - winter-grower, small, freely off-setting and with fantastic scent to the flowers - epigeal bulbs but otherwise like a small shawii.
A. spiralis seedlings do not have curled (spiral) leaves. There seem to be a few, quite different, clones in cultivation, possibly including what are actually A. namaquensis.