Oxalis in bloom and on the wiki
Mary Sue Ittner (Sat, 09 Oct 2004 20:26:30 PDT)

Dear All,

This is a good time of year for Oxalis in the Northern Hemisphere. I still
have a few summer blooming ones still in bloom and now the fall ones are
blooming and new ones are coming up all the time. Besides the great variety
of colors represented there are all those wonderful and different leaves as
well. I'm adding pictures to the wiki of new ones I didn't get a good
picture of last year and am also replacing pictures when I get a better
one. Because many of them are white or yellow I haven't always had a
picture that is good of both leaves and flowers. If you have a good
exposure for the flowers, the leaves can be too dark.

In bloom at the moment are the plant that we are calling O. zeekoevleyensis
but could be something else with purple flowers and green leaves, Oxalis
namaquana with yellow flowers, O. ambigua and depressa with white flowers,
O. callosa which is one of the prettiest I think, multicolored, a white
Oxalis purpurea, a selection I got from Uli he called #76 with pink flowers
that I haven't yet gotten a picture of that shows the leaves adequately,
and Oxalis polyphylla v. heptaphylla MV 6396. This one has light pink
flowers and attractive buds.

Each year I try to order a couple of new ones from Telos Rare Bulbs and
this year I got Oxalis lobata, which unlike the others, is from Chile and
not South Africa. This one has low growing bright green leaves and bright
bright yellow flowers that cover the plant. I love it. It is so uplifting
and cheerful. Also in bloom are two forms of Oxalis hirta. A number of
years ago Lauw gave me the cultivar 'Gothenburg'. He told me it wouldn't
probably bloom the first year, but would eventually and it has. I keep
putting it in a bigger pot and this year when I dumped the bulbs out I was
amazed how huge they were. It is taller and has finer leaves than the other
O. hirta I grow. Both are wonderful plants with bright pink flowers. Oxalis
bowiei has buds. It's another one I got from Uli. I'll always be grateful
to Mike Mace, Diana Chapman, and Uli for getting me interested in this
genus. I hope some of the people who have acquired the offsets I send on to
the BX are equally happy with them.

Most of the new pictures can be accessed from the South African Oxalis page:
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

I describe details there about each, so if you are interested in Oxalis it
is good to go to the page, but since that page is getting a bit long and
some of you might just want to see the pictures, here are the individual urls:
New picture for Oxalis ambiqua MV5532 which has been especially nice this
year and just keeps putting out more and more flowers:
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/…

I've added a couple pictures of Oxalis depressa MV4871. This one has rather
large white flowers and almost succulent like leaves and it has been hard
to get a picture of both flowers and leaves. It sometimes blooms for me
starting in September and lasting until December.
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/…
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/…

I added a picture of my two forms of Oxalis hirta together so you can see
how they are different although you can't really tell from this picture how
much taller O. hirta 'Gothenburg' is.
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/…

I've started taking pictures of the storage organs of some of my bulbs. I'm
not quite satisfied with my technique yet so over time hope to improve, but
many of them will be shown on 1 cm. squares so you can get an idea how big
they are. So here are the bulbs of the two Oxalis hirta forms I grow before
I planted them:
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/…
and the large 'Gothenburg' bulbs
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/…

The last one is Oxalis lobata on the South American wiki page:
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

Bill Dijk has a nice picture of this species too on that page.

Mary Sue