Lycoris and Rain
James Waddick (Tue, 16 Aug 2005 06:23:58 PDT)

Dear All;
Although I have at least mentioned this in the past, this
year has reinforced my view that rain and Lycoris bloom go together.

We had almost a month of no rain and temps hovering just
under 100 (F) - from about July 7 to August 13 we had no rain. Over
the last weekend we had a couple days of rain totalling over 3 inches.

One small bed of various early Lycoris species and hybrids
managed to produce a dozen flowering stems before the rain. This
morning I counted 44 new stems emerging days after our rainfall.

Another bed of L. squamigera now has over floral 48 stems in
growth more than doubling the pre-rain numbers.

Beds with only a handful of pre-rain stems on L. squamigera,
L. chinensis, L. longituba and L. sprengeri are actively pushing up
more or new stems. L. caldwellii is putting up its first stems, but
this is always behind the others in growth sequence.

We had a similar pattern last year. I assume that A.
belladonna shows a similar surge in floral stem production following
rain ending a drought period. Is this true?

Best Jim W.
--
Dr. James W. Waddick
8871 NW Brostrom Rd.
Kansas City Missouri 64152-2711
USA
Ph. 816-746-1949
Zone 5 Record low -23F
Summer 100F +