Dear All and especially Fred, I'm downsized some pictures to add to the wiki, especially for all you flower deprived folks where winter has everything covered with snow or too cold to bloom. I'll be adding them in batches as I have time. The first two are Oxalis from Telos. One bloomed in October and the other one, Oxalis livida, did not bloom, but has leaves a lot like one of the unknown species that Uli collected in South Africa so I thought it useful to add the leaves for comparison sake. I just got one bloom from the Uli bulb (Uli76) also in October but the color of the flower was right. These plants are good ones to photograph with a digital camera so you don't feel so bad when you delete almost all the pictures you take as not worth keeping. The leaves are very tricky to photograph. The other unknown from Uli (Uli 63) is a very charming plant that has been blooming since December. It has nice bright yellow flowers. When I was looking at my Cape Plants book which has a key of sorts, I noted that not very many Oxalis in the Cape have a peduncle with more than 1 flower (only 9). Since he found this plant near the Nieuwoudtville pass that eliminates quite a few of the species which are found elsewhere. There are only three left and one of them is Oxalis livida with rose or lilac flowers and very different leaves. That leaves two: Oxalis pes-caprae and Oxalis compressa. By process of deduction I suspect it is the latter. So what do our Oxalis experts think? Any other ideas about these two mystery plants? The wiki page is pasted below, but since it may be hard to find what I've added since that page has a lot of data and pictures on it, I've copied the new sections below. More to come (Crocus, Romulea, Narcissus, more Oxalis, Lachenalia, Gladiolus) as I have time. Mary Sue http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/… Oxalis engleriana grows on shady southern slopes in the Northwest and Southwest Cape. It blooms in the fall and has 5-8 linear to linear-oblong leaflets and a rose or violet flower 3 to 4 cm with a narrow yellow tube. Photo by Mary Sue Ittner. http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/… Oxalis livida has trifoliolate leaves, usually hairy, with deeply bilobed leaflets that are purple beneath and rose or lilac flowers with a yellow tube. It blooms in fall. It is found on rocky slopes in shade in the Northwest and Southwest Cape. My plant did not bloom, but I found the leaves quite fascinating and extremely difficult to photograph as they blend into the background and don't look as attractive as they are. Photo by Mary Sue Ittner. http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/… Oxalis sp. Uli63 collected by Johannes-Ulrich Urban outside Vanrhynsdorp in hard gravel forms a rosette of bright green leaves with reddish-brown stems and many bright yellow flowers blooming above the leaves in winter. Could this be Oxalis compressa which is found in the Northwest to Southwest Cape and has more than one flower in the peduncle (2-6), trifoliate leaves and compressed leaf stalks and is often confused with Oxalis pes-caprae which it reminded Uli of but seemed more refined? http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/… Oxalis sp. Uli76 collected by Johannes-Ulrich Urban at about 500m. on the Nieuwoudtville Pass in fynbos habitat. This species blooms in the fall and has pink flowers and deeply bilobed leaves that sometimes look purple and sometimes green. Could it be Oxalis livida? http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/… http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/…
