Bowiea basics
Christiaan van Schalkwyk (Fri, 16 Jan 2009 02:03:34 PST)

Hi all

According to the SA National Biodiversity institute there are only one
species of Bowiea, i.e. B. volubilis. There are two subspecies, namely
volubilis and gariepensis. Bowiea kilimandscharica is a synonym of or is
sunk into ssp. volubilis
See:
http://ville-ge.ch/musinfo/bd/…
and type in Bowiea, search, and if you follow the links the distribution
areas will be shown. B. volubilis are found over a very large and diverse
geographical and rainfall area, so many local variations will exist. These
will probably integrate into each other, and thus not seperable into
subspecies. But if a northern form are compared with a southern one (with
approx 1500km difference in distance !), definite differences in size and
hardiness will be seen. Many other species will show similar variations.

These differences makes it quite important to record the orrigin of plants,
not only in order to effectively conserve them, but also to optimize growing
conditions and watering, as well as too appreciate the natural diversity
that is "out there".

Christiaan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alberto Grossi" <crinum@libero.it>
To: "pbs" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2009 6:45 PM
Subject: Re: [pbs] Bowiea basics