Oxalis pocockiae bulbils

Christiaan van Schalkwyk cvschalkwyk@lantic.net
Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:43:36 PST
Hi Nhu

These bulbils will grow and eventially brown and become dislodged from the 
mother plants, usually when the leaves die down.

The are very light, and can be blown by the wind, or carried away by water.

If kept cool or in shade for the summer, most will grow next year. Some 
might even flower the first year, but most will flower only the second.

Other species that do this often is O. inaequalis (will post a pic to the 
wiki later, with up to 400 bulbils per plant), and I've seen it on some 
clones of O obtusa (rarely).

Unfortunately this is a characteristic that should carry a warning when 
these plants are distributed - these bulbils can escape, and greatly 
increases the weed potential of the particular species or form.

Enjoy
Christiaan

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nhu Nguyen" <xerantheum@gmail.com>
To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 10:36 PM
Subject: [pbs] Oxalis pocockiae bulbils


> Hi everyone,
>
> This morning I went outside to find something shocking in my pot of Oxalis
> pocockiae. The area where the leaf petioles meet the soil was bursting 
> with
> strange fleshy structures. I immediately took a few photos and posted them
> to the wiki to ask everyone's opinion. Upon adding the photos, I read the
> caption saying that these plants produced lots of bulbils. So I suppose
> that's what these are:
> http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…
>
> Does anyone know how long these bulbils will last? I have too many and I
> think the BX could use some if they last long enough to go through the 
> mail.
>
> Nhu
> Sunny (finally!) Berkeley, CA where the bulbs have been unhappy with a
> really wet winter and speckled from hail damage.
> Canarina canariensis is blooming. The flowers lasted over a week now! It 
> is
> a must grow plant. I will add more photos to the wiki when I have some 
> time
> but in the mean while here are some from my Flickr stream.
> http://flickr.com/photos/xerantheum/…
> http://flickr.com/photos/xerantheum/…
> _______________________________________________
> pbs mailing list
> pbs@lists.ibiblio.org
> http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php
> http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ 


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