Geissorhiza in bloom

Mary Sue Ittner msittner@mcn.org
Tue, 25 Mar 2003 09:50:13 PST
Dear All,

My Geissorhiza have been blooming for awhile with a few more species 
opening soon. I really love this genus but try to give it extra water if we 
go a week without rain since Graham Duncan said some of the more 
spectacular species need extra water (2 to 3 times a week in dry weather.) 
We saw them in South Africa in soils that were squishy even though sandy.

I have added pictures Bob took of some of the ones in bloom to the Wiki 
page for Geissorhiza:
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

There were already some really beautiful pictures there that Sheila took. 
My additions from this year's crop:

Geissorhiza heterostyla--from NARGS seed mislabeled G. furva which is 
yellow. I finally got this one I.D.ed this year after knowing the corm 
shape and following the key

Geissorhiza inaequalis--The weedy one for me that blooms a very long time 
in winter and tolerates wet climates. At this point it isn't crowding out 
others so it just makes me smile to see it, but maybe that could change.

Geissorhiza inflexa--from Silverhill Seed. This is the red flowered 
version. It is amazing.

Geissorhiza ornithogaloides--small yellow flowered one that only opens when 
it is warm and sunny. This was a trial for the photographer. Yellows are 
tricky and lots of pictures were deleted, but he kept at it.

Geissorhiza splendidissima--This one was also difficult to capture with the 
digital camera. The pictures were gorgeous, but they were mostly a 
wonderful blue that those of us who are blue crazy would covet. This plant 
is a great plant, equally desirable, but not blue. I have often seen crocus 
pictures that are blue and wondered if the plant was really that color so 
perhaps violets are also hard to capture. I tinkered with the color on this 
and made it closer to reality, but it still (on my computer) isn't quite right.

Also blooming now is Geissorhiza radians but Sheila has a nice picture of 
that one and G. monanthos has nice buds as well. She has a good picture of 
that one too and G. darlingensis which is a very rare one found only in 
Tiene Versfeld (the place with the squishy sand) that I keep trying from 
seed but haven't gotten to blooming size. I keep trying G. corrugata too, 
but may be too wet for it. In one of my pots that was labeled G. corrugata 
a Romulea bloomed this year. It was a really nice Romulea and probably more 
likely to grow in my climate.

Mary Sue





Mary Sue Ittner
California's North Coast
Wet mild winters with occasional frost
Dry mild summers


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