Dear All, I am sorry to have such a long title for this week's topic of the week but I hoped it would be inconclusive and would give all of you who attended the IBSA Symposium and traveled to South Africa in August-September an opportunity to share with the members of this list. I will start out by talking about the Symposium and as the week progresses post about the rest of our trip and about some of the things I learned from talking to people while in South Africa. Sometimes this will be a follow-up to something discussed on this list either because it was a question never answered or just because I was soliciting opinions on the subject from people who lived in South Africa. Sometimes it would be something new. I hope people will ask questions if something is not clear and will correct any mistakes. It was a very intense time, especially in the beginning, so I could very easily have gotten something wrong. And my hands were cold so some of my notes are a little challenging to decipher. Please some of the rest of you contribute as well so I'm not the only one who is posting. IBSA for those who do not know is the Indigenous Bulb Association of South Africa, a group with monthly meetings in South Africa that is interested in South African bulbs. I have been a member for a number of years since this is an interest of mine as well and even though I can't go to the meetings I value the Bulletin produced once a year and currently edited by Rachel Saunders, the monthly bulb chat previously written by Andries de Villiers and now written by Alan Horstmann, and the seed exchange. The IBSA committee decided to have a Bulb Symposium a number of years ago following another Bulb Symposium held in South Africa that was too expensive for most of their members to attend. That Symposium also had only a few talks about South African bulbs so the plan for this one was to focus on their country and its bulbs and to organize a meeting that many of their members would both be able to and want to attend. The plan was for two days of talks followed by three days of field trips. As this event was scheduled three years ahead of time the one thing that could not be predicted was the weather. As it turns out the weather made it very difficult for the organizers. There were over 90 people in attendance. Of the international delegates there was one person from New Zealand, three from Australia, one from the Czech Republic, one from the Netherlands, five from the UK, one from France, and eight of us from the United States. Everyone else was from various parts of South Africa. The International delegates had our meals together (except for the field lunches) and some of the South African delegates joined us for some of the meals. It was very cold the first two days when we were in the meetings and it was raining outside with snow on the mountains. There wasn't any heating in our meeting rooms or our rondavels so no one was in a hurry to rush back to their rooms and we had many wonderful conversations with our eating companions. Instead of asking, "What do you do?" the question was, "What do you grow?" Soon the noise level in the room escalated as people were engaged. The first talk Monday was given by Gordon Summerfield. Gordon was the previous chairman of IBSA for at least 7 years. When Gordon retired, he decided to devote himself to growing bulbs. He has a very large collection and when he is not playing golf or out exploring in the veld he can probably be found observing, pollinating, cleaning seed, etc. He is definitely passionate about his bulbs. I talked to Gordon one night at dinner and visited him and his collection twice and will share a little of his philosophy and what I learned from him in a later email if there is interest in this. His talk was "Creating the right environment and conditions for growing bulbous plants." It was a great way to start. He was followed by Peter Knippels who has written the book Growing Bulbs Indoors. Reading that book you'd never guess that Peter is a very young man since it sounds like he has years of experience. Since Peter is from the Netherlands and can't grow a lot of his bulbs outside he grows bulbs in his attic near a window under lights. In his talk he showed us pictures and described how he does it. Then he went on to giving his talk, "'New' SA bulbous plants in the dutch bulb industry". Some of the popular South African bulbs he talked about were Freesia, Zantedeschia, Gladiolus, Eucomis, and Ixia. In the past there was a lot of forcing of bulbs and not so much anymore. He mentioned there were 45 Zantedeschia growers. Virus is a problem with this genus, but new varieties are coming on. Eucomis is popular because is can be grown in the ground, harvested by machine, and there are new varieties appearing. Cameron McMaster then talked about Eastern Cape Bulbs and showed pictures. These bulbs are from a summer rainfall area with occasional water in winter. Rainfall and altitude varies. Many are endemic to those areas. He showed us pictures of Brunsvigia, Haemanthus, Cyrtanthus, Nerine, Dierama, Gladiolus, Watsonia, Moraea, Hesperantha, Hypoxis, Eucomis, Lachenalia, Albuca, Massonia, Ledbouria and something else I can't make out in my notes. Interestingly some of those species are found in winter rainfall areas too which proves you really need to know your species to grow it properly. Just a few comments from my notes: Haemanthus montanus flowers before leaves are produced, is found in areas with poor drainage. Haemanthus humilis is a cliff grower. The sticky seeds stick to the cliffs. Hesperantha huttonii forms mats, grows in the shade. Massonia jasminiflora is very highly scented. Hypoxis germination is slow, may take 1-5 years. Cyrtanthus that need fire to bloom--Try drying off plant and using smoke filter water or bury your pot and make a fire on top Rod Saunders then showed us a slide show, A season of bulbs. These included pictures of bulbs that only bloom after fires. Rod had great pictures so this was a treat. In the afternoon Dee Snijman gave a talk on Amazing Amaryllids, Specialised but high risk lifestyles. I was very excited to hear her talk. She is very soft spoken and speaks carefully and precisely. I took pages of notes. Lauw de Jager has warned me to be concise and I have already broken that so this is another talk that I could summarize in another email if there is interest. After her talk, John Rourke told the story of the amazing find of Clivia mirabilis in the Western Cape. It was found in screes and cliffs below a rock plateau near Nieuwoudtville in a semi-desert area in an area with only 400 mm of rainfall, relentless sun. It has leathery leaves and curved pendulous orange flowers with green tips, red pedicels, and red ovaries. It takes up almost every drop of water during the wet season and is almost like a succulent. He speculated the pollinators were attracted to the red pedicels and ovaries. These Clivias offer hope for breeding Clivias that can be grown in the sun. The seeds ripen very rapidly. I was pleased to hear that the plants are protected in a reserve, but there has been an attempt to get seed to growers so plant collectors will be less tempted to dig them from the wild. (The plant habitat makes this a bit difficult however.) And the seed is growing so perhaps one day this newly discovered genus will be better known. The final talk of the day was Conservation of the Renosterveld by Tilla Raimondo. The renosterveld is one of those terms I have read a lot, but never really tried to master. In the past, 46% of the Cape Floral province was composed of renosterveld. Now there is only 7% left in the West Coast and 14% left elsewhere. The threats to it are too much grazing and irregular or too frequent fires. Since these areas are shrub lands with nutrient rich soils (shale, granite) they are popular for grazing. Rainfall in these areas is between 250-650 mm. Less rain is found in the succulent Karoo vegetation types and more in fynbos. Besides shrubs in these areas there are also annuals and seasonal geophytes. So from a bulb lovers stand point losing these habitats is worrisome. Fire may be necessary for the bulbs, but too often fires encourage alien grasses. How often fire is needed hasn't really been researched enough. We were encouraged that they are trying to find the areas that are left and reach the farmers who own them to teach them about how valuable these areas are. Bob and I and Lauw de Jager and Patty Colville later had an opportunity to explore an area of renosterveld where we were delighted with the bulbs in flower. We were very lucky that Rhoda and Cameron McMaster arranged this trip for us to Bos Klof and came with us as well. Later we were to see a wonderful area of renosterveld called the Drayton railroad siding. This area off the N2 and near a railroad was one of the treasures of our trip. I counted at least 30 different geophytes in bloom the first day we visited it and some things were in mass bloom like Gladiolus liliaceus in many different variations and color forms. There were also some wonderful Oxalis here, masses of Spiloxene capensis, many Moraeas, Watsonias, Babianas. There is not space to list them all. The super star for me of the plot was Aristea biflora. Once again I am wishing I had better luck germinating these. This area is being looked after by a man who comes and weeds. All around it are either agricultural fields and shrubs with only a few geophytes present. This is the famous last known spot for Moraea insolens. It has been burned in the recent past, but could have been burned at the wrong time after Moraea insolens was in growth. At any rate we didn't see it and others haven't in a number of years either. Hopefully one of these days I'll get pictures of some of these on the wiki, especially that Aristea. I had planned to talk about the talks in day two and the field trips, but this is already too long and as I said before I have been admonished by Lauw to keep my remarks brief. So the rest will have to wait for another email unless someone else in attendance beats me to it. Mary Sue