What bulb is this?
John C. MacGregor (Sun, 29 Aug 2010 15:42:31 PDT)

On Aug 29, 2010, at 12:44 PM, Mariano Saviello wrote:

This group is wonderful! Thanks Mariano and Mary Sue!

About a dozen years ago I received a single corm of this Sparaxis in
a collection of 250 mixed Sparaxis corms purchased from van
Bourgondien in Holland. I lined them out six inches apart in a rose
bed--the only place I had available in the 1 1/2-acre Hall garden in
Pasadena at that time, My objective was to sort them out into colors
when they came into bloom. When they flowered, I lifted them
individually and moved them to the foreground of beds in various
parts of the garden where they fit in with the separate color
schemes. I was surprised to find this only yellow-flowered plant
among the more conventional "Peacock Flower" multicolored blooms.

I moved this single corm into the swimming pool garden, where the
year-round dominant color notes are complementary yellows and violets
(Wisteria 'Cooke's Special Purple', Petrea volubilis, Clematis
jackmanii and 'Etoiler Violette', Geranium incanum and 'Jolly Bee', a
violet-colored Buddleja, Plectranthus fruticosus, Limonium perezii,
Goniolimon tataricum, Agapanthus 'Storm Cloud', Scilla peruviana--all
violet--and yellow or gold Acacia baileyana, Senna bicapsularis
'California Gold, roses 'Graham Thomas', 'Royal Gold', and
'Charlotte', Eleagnus x ebbingii 'Gilt Edge', xCitrofortunella
microcarpa 'Variegata', Phormium vietchianum, 'Duet', and 'Yellow
Wave', Hemerocallis 'Mary Derby' and 'Miss Amelia', Anigozanthos
'Bush Gold' and 'Yellow Gem', Scabiosa ochroleuca, Mimulus guttatus--
to name just a few).

Since then, this yellow sparaxis has multiplied handsomely into a
clump a couple of feet long and a foot wide, with a few outliers--
obviously from seed. Unlike the other hybrids, which I also
segregated by color, the seedlings show no sign of hybridity but are
apparently identical to their parent. My experience with the
multicolor hybrids is that no matter how carefully I separate them by
color, if I allow them to seed around, my color scheme is completely
defeated in a couple of years since there is no predicting the
colorcombinations that will arise in the seedlings.

I am most grateful for the identification of this species as Sparaxis
bulbiferum. Since the soil in the area of the swimming pool is very
spare--it started out as the subsoil excavated when the pool was
built in the 1930s and has received little amendment ever since--and
they are in full, hot sun, the stems are much shorter than those
shown in Mary Sue's photo (about 12-14 inches). For me, they have
had no tendency to flop.

John C. MacGregor
South Pasadena, CA, USA
USDA Zone 9
Sunset Zones 21/23