On Aug 29, 2010, at 12:44 PM, Mariano Saviello wrote: > As far as I can see, the mysterious bulb in the picture is Sparaxis > bulbifera. 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