Dear All, First off I want to remind everyone that Bill Dijk in New Zealand flowers this plant as he has added a picture to the wiki: http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/… Bill if you are reading this perhaps you can tell us how you have succeeded with it and how long it took from seed to flower. Thanks to Dirk for advising us that even though this plant is from a predominantly summer rainfall area it grows in winter. The Bulbous Plants of Southern Africa book says it is summer growing and I guess I didn't look any further and just thought my plants were adapting to my Mediterranean climate. Dirk's comment caused me to go rummaging through my old IBSA bulletins as I recalled Rhoda had written an article in the 2000 year bulletin entitled Some Bulbous Oxymoronaceae. This "family" she has created is for bulbs that have a winter-related growth habit when they are found naturally in an area where rainfall occurs mainly in summer. They grow in the winter and are dormant in summer and have acclimatized to a warm wet summer and a dryish frosty winter. Bulbs in the area where she used to live (Stutterheim) that fell in this category are Freesia laxa, Ixia orientalis, Moraea unguiculata, Hesperantha falcata, Massonia jasminiflora, Lachenalia campanulata, Veltheimia bracteata, Ornithogalum thyrsoides, Haemanthus coccineus, and Strumaria gemmata. In her next paragraph she refers to a group of plants in the Amaryllidaeae that have not quite made up their minds whether they want to belong to the Oxymoronaceae or not. In this category she places Brunsvigia gregaria, Brunsvigia grandiflora and Haemanthus montanus. In Stutterheim the leaves of these three appear in January, halfway between spring and autumn. The Brunsvigia species flower between January and March (summer to autumn), the leaves persist into late winter and then die off in late spring and stay dormant for the rest of the time. They sit solemnly through wet heavy showers in summer and cannot be enticed to sprout earlier. She advised a light sprinkling during early summer when they are dormant. My Pooley books say for distribution scattered in grassland, 1200-3200 meters Eastern Cape, Kwazulu-Natal, and the Free State. So maybe Dawie can tell us about the ones in the Free State. By the way for those interested in common names this one is called the Giant Candelabra Flower. Thanks for all those who have reported that their seeds are coming along just fine in spite of all their journeys. I hope more of you will report as well. Rhoda would have postponed the time they normally would have been germinating by refrigerating them and I am still guessing they would be sending down a radicle when the soil would be dry which doesn't make any sense to me. When we visited Stutterheim in late winter two years ago it looked extremely dry, just like it does in California in the fall before it starts to rain. So does that make this Brunsvigia and B. gregaria seed more adaptable and able to last longer before they get moisture or are Brunsvigia seeds that that way? I know they get some rainfall in winter so perhaps a little is enough. Thanks Paul for your interesting observations about Amaryllid seed. In Northern coastal California my Brunsvigia grandiflora plants from seed started in February 2000 that have been subjected to at least two years of 50+ inches of rain in winter and occasionally sprinklings but mostly dry summers have just this week emerged. So this one may be a very adaptable plant. Mary Sue Mary Sue Ittner California's North Coast Wet mild winters with occasional frost Dry mild summers
