IBSA Symposium 2003/Vist to South Africa TOW
Mary Sue Ittner (Sun, 28 Sep 2003 11:43:45 PDT)

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