Dear All, Last year Peter Maynard announced that his Daubenya aurea has just finished blooming in November. He said he had the red form. I thought this was rather strange since Peter lives in the U.K. and the normal time for Daubenya aurea to bloom is September in South Africa so for it to be blooming in the Northern Hemisphere at the same time would be unusual. Still people sometimes are able to turn around plants as we will hopefully be discussing soon. Peter has just sent me a picture of his Daubenya in bud now and I have added it to the wiki. I am wondering if it could be a different species. There are newly assigned Daubenyas that bloom in the fall in South Africa. One of them with leaves like Peter's is Daubenya zeyheri. This plant has had these names: Massonia zeyheri, Polyxena zeyheri, Massonia pedunculataa, Massonia burchellii, Neobarkia burchellii, Massonia angustifolia. The Kirstenbosch West Coast field guide shows a picture of Massonia angustifolia which I assume is this plant and Spring and Winter Flowering Bulbs of the Cape has a picture of Neobarkia angustifolia which I assume is the same thing as well. The taxonomists must have had a field day with this one. It blooms May-June so the timing would be right for Peter's plants. Daubenya capensis also has similar leaves, but blooms at the wrong time. Here is Peter's picture: http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/… It would seem like the center of the plant might be helpful in identifying it, but maybe there are several like that. I hope someone can identify this. I know Julian Slade is really up to date with a lot of the South African bulbs in this family. And we do have a lot of people from South Africa on this list now too who might help. I'll rename it and spell it properly once we get it identified and then we can add it to the Daubenya page. Thanks. Mary Sue
