At 06:06 PM 4/22/2005, you wrote: >Dennis, it's one of my favorite plants. I've bought a few into the garden >over the years - I'm always on the lookout for forms with attractively >spotted foliage. I've seen some very fat, stout, nicely spotted Manfreda in >a local garden - it's labeled M. virginica although as a garden ornament >it's pretty distinct. Early in the season the leaves have a strongly rippled >edge - very cool! > >If your plants do bloom and you have access to tuberose pollen, do some >crosses. Manfreda virginica and Polianthes tuberosa will cross and produce >viable seeds (and this suggests that the botanists need to take another >look!). Wow! And to think I was nervous about sending an email to the PBS forum about a plant distinctly NOT of pacific-rim origin. LOL. It seems M. virginica is a bit of a hit amongst other fellow PBSers. I will be sure to share some photos with you as it matures this season. Just going from my memory there not a lot of spots on mine. It was pretty much a regular boring green color. I do not have any potential "mates" for it. I'm just happy to have a specimen that's thriving (now that I found the growing conditions that make it happy). If it sets seed, well, hooray! I'll have something to donate back to PBS. :-) How tall can I expect the bloom stalks to reach? Is it like just a few inches or does it reach several feet? I like the way it forms pups, almost like hens & chicks. >Conroe Joe might have something more to say about this interesting genus: >he's down in a hotbed of Manfreda culture, where several species and >cultivated forms of dubious origin will thrive. > >If my plant of Manfreda singuliflora blooms again this year, I'll be doing >some other crosses, too. This is evidently hardy here, and it may be in >Cincinnati, too. Unfortunately, Manfreda singuliflora does not have a scent >that I can detect, so some tuberose hybrids here might improve things. > >Jim McKenney >Jimmckenney@starpower.net >Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where sadly there are no >rattlesnakes for the Manfreda to master (did I say that last year?). Hmmm... the only rattlesnake master I know is Eryngium yuccifolium. Which sadly, mine died out without self-seeding a few years ago. Boo hoo!!! Dennis in Cincy