Fwd: Ferraria crispa Corms

Jane McGary janemcgary@earthlink.net
Tue, 16 Aug 2011 10:17:37 PDT
In my experience, when you have a bulb that never flowers but just 
splits up, the best thing to do is leave it alone for a few years 
rather than repotting constantly.

Flowering is sometimes thought to be a response to a "threat" to the 
parent plant's continued existence, and depletion of soil nutrients 
may be a trigger. In contrast, splitting up can be a response to 
predation by digging animals -- the more tiny corms are present, the 
more chance the plant can survive disturbance. I don't know about 
Ferraria in particular, but South African bulbs are quite subject to 
being dug up and eaten, e.g. by baboons.

Jane McGary
Portland, Oregon, USA


Matt wrote.,
> > After looking at the PBS Wiki, I think that these are indeed Ferraria
> > crispa, but I have a problem. I had been potting up the cormlets every
> > year,
> > and now I have many, far too many. They are not very large, the largest is
> > about the size of a US quarter coin, and the rest, smaller. They have been
> > dividing in copious amounts.
> >
> > Should I repot all of the corms deeper? Right now, they are falling out of
> > the pot, pushing themselves out over the rim, and they are so tight inside
> > the pot that I may have to crack it. I have them in a 10 inch clay pot,
> > with
> > a fast draining soil mix which is mostly lean, and about 80% perlite. The
> > foliage is magnificent, but no flowers yet.
> >


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