Cc IBSMEMBERS@yahoogroups.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Reply-To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pacificbulbsociety@lists.mcn.org> Sender: <pacificbulbsociety@lists.mcn.org> Precedence: Bulk X-pstn-levels: (C99.1786 M99.8512 P95.9108 S91.4278 ) X-UIDL: 6pf!!&IN"!=/L!!XA[!! Hi all, Thanks, everyone, for the assist with Dash's address. It seems he has not moved to Tasmania, or else has returned to Victoria already. Has anyone done any hybridizing in the genus Haemanthus? The only hybrid I have run across is 'King Albert', from albiflos X sanguineus or the reverse. It makes a large bulb with huge leaves and a very small scape and inflorescence. The bulb slowly produced offsets. It tries to grow at odd times, going dormant in late spring and sometimes trying to bloom or leaf out in July (mid-summer here). I've found that it does not like sitting out in the weather through summer here, so maybe I'll try it under a bench in the lath house next summer, along with the albiflos. I've been growing Haemanthus (other than albiflos) for about 5 or 6 years now. This year, I saw the first blooms on plants of coccineus and humilis hirsutus, and saw aborted scapes on barkerae. I could not resist all that pollen, so I hand-pollinated a bit of hirsutus onto albiflos and a bit of coccineus onto hirsutus. A few berries are forming. I did not put any pollen on coccineus, and no berries formed. Only a few of the florets of hirsutus were pollinated, and only a few berries are forming, about where I pollinated. In a separate earlier bloom of hirsutus, I did some self-pollinations. I tried to pollinate all the flowers, but only got two berries with 1 seed each. So I would say that hirsutus is only a little bit self-fertile, a point in favor of my new hirsutus berries being cross-pollinated, I suppose. Time will tell, maybe. Regards, Jim Shields in central Indiana ************************************************* Jim Shields USDA Zone 5 Shields Gardens, Ltd. P.O. Box 92 WWW http//http://www.shieldsgardens.com/ Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA Tel. +1-317-896-3925