Hesperocallis undulata

I got seeds from Southwestern Native Seeds (they offer it every year)
and from a guy who sold all kinds of plant seeds out of Redwood City,
California. (I can't remember his nursery's name.) I tried them in three
different years and always planted them in the autumn like a lot of
mediterranean climate bulb seeds, and they always germinated in great
quantities. Germinating them was never the problem. They would grow
through the winter outside in our South. Calif. winter rains just fine.
Then they'd go dormant when it got warm. But they never, ever, sprouted
again after that first year. Haven't tried again recently.

I got the mature bulb when this one IBS guy offered them for sale, after
a housing development was being built and the developer bulldozed up a
large quantity of the bulbs. I planted it in pure sand in my deepest
pot. (The pot was about 2-2.5 feet (60-75 cm) deep and I planted it
about 6 inches (15 cm) from the bottom.) I kept it completely dry during
the summer and placed in the warmest part of the yard, although
protected the pot from direct sunlight so it wouldn't cook the bulb. I
let the natural rain fall on it during the winter, still outdoors. I
never got it to put up any leaves, although I would eventually check it
in the middle of summer and it was always the same size and appeared
perfectly healthy. This went on for about 5 years. Then one summer, the
bulb wasn't there.

It seems to grow just fine in nature in quite a number of desert
locales. It can be seen most years in the high desert half of Mojave
National Park although it appears in far greater numbers when there are
good winter rains. Monsoon moisture probably isn't necessary because the
monsoon effect tapers off pretty dramatically between Phoenix, Arizona
and Palm Springs, California. (We just drove back from Texas via the
Interstate 10 freeway this summer for family vacation and stopped at
Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona. We learned that Saguaro
cactuses ripen huge quantities of seeds in the middle of summer and then
the small seeds depend on the summer monsoon rains in order to
germinate. Thus, there are more saguaros that germinate in good monsoon
years than in dry years. We noticed after driving past Phoenix that the
density of saguaros diminished more and more and finally disappeared
altogether after crossing the Colorado River into Blythe, California.
This matches with what I saw a number of years ago while perusing the
climate records of the various cities and towns between Phoenix and Palm
Springs.)

I have an aunt and uncle who have some property down in San Felipe, Baja
California (Norte). They visit there at least twice a month over the
past 20 or 30 years. San Felipe gets very little rain, even in the
winter. In fact, a big chunk of any rain they ever get is when a
hurricane or tropical storm hits Baja California far enough north that
the remnants reach their area in what is called a chubasco. However,
some years ago when there was a really big El Niño throughout the
winter, lots of rain fell that winter down there. They went down one
weekend in the early spring and they arrived around midnight during a
full moon. They told me that for miles and miles, as they got closer to
their destination, the desert appeared to be covered with white lily
blooms shining in the moonlight as far as the eye could see, and they
rolled down their windows and the air had this heavenly scent my aunt
says she'll never forget. Wish I could have experienced that.

One last experience similar to all my failed Hesperocallis seed
germinating experiences: A few years ago I got seeds sent to me from two
different locations in Baja California Sur (South) some distance north
of Cabo San Lucas of Behria tenuiflora (syn. Bessera tenuiflora). Both
are basically desert locations with rainfall mostly due to tropical
storms and hurricanes that might pass that way. Like Hesperocallis
seeds, the Behria seeds germinated quite easily with great germination
percentages, and I planted them in the autumn. They grew well all that
year. Then went dormant when it got warm. I tried watering them in early
autumn when I thought it might mimic getting rained on by a tropical
storm remnant. Only a very few sprouted, but grew just fine. The
following year, I did the same thing, but out of maybe 75 initial
seedlings, less than a handful sprouted. The year after that none
sprouted and when I checked the pot, all the small bulblets I'd seen the
year before were completely gone.

I'm not sure what these two species are looking for to grow and/or
flower and thrive. But I must not be mimicking what they experience
enough or in the right way at all.

--Lee Poulsen
Pasadena, California, USA - USDA Zone 10a