scilla madeirensis
Michael Benedito (Mon, 30 May 2011 15:51:18 PDT)
Greetings
Im from Madeira and I have seen this plant in the wild. In some places it is almost gone but I know a few colonies which are doing quite well. It blooms in Sep-October in Madeira and during December in Kew which is rather interesting.
My plants at home produce many berries each year and seeds are very easy to germinate. I'm also growing Scilla maderensis var. melliodora, a very rare variant known only to occur in the remote archipelago of selvagens islands, and even here they only grow on the Selvagem pequena, an islet which is less than 1 km square of area. The amazing thing is that the flowers are scented and might be pollinated by endemic lizzards (Lacerta dugesii subsp selvagensis and Tarentola bischofii). The leaves are more silvery too and i suspect this might be a new species as it differs a lot from the standard form.
They can be grown the same way as heamanthus species.
Regards
Michael
--- On Mon, 30/5/11, johannes-ulrich-urban@t-online.de <johannes-ulrich-urban@t-online.de> wrote:
From: johannes-ulrich-urban@t-online.de <johannes-ulrich-urban@t-online.de>
Subject: [pbs] scilla madeirensis
To: "Pacifib Bulb Society messages" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Monday, 30 May, 2011, 23:35
Dear All,
Scilla madeirensis is certainly one of the most beautiful
winter
flowering bulbs..... if it flowers and grows well.
Apparently this bulb
has such a narrow genetic constitution that is on the brink
of
extinction in the wild. It is almost sterile and even wild
plants are
said to produce no or very little seed. The reason for this
is not known
as far as I am aware of. I wonder what you got as seed
under this name.
There were some bulbs for sale when I was in Madeira many
years ago and
I bought 2 or three, hoping to have different clones and to
get
seed..... but no. I think there was one single seed in all
these years
but the seedling did not live very long.
I find this bulb very difficult to grow. It is one of those
plants that
is always missing something: it is either too wet or too
dry, too cold
or too warm or too bright or too shady. Madeira has a
very mild cool
moist oceanic climate without extemes , so probably my
greenhouse gets
too hot in summer. I am sure it is NOT frost-hardy, my
plants go limp
and floppy even a few degrees above freezing.
At Mike Salmon's former nursery in Britain I have seen a
magnificent
plant in bloom a long time ago, something you immediatey
would want to
grow at first sight. But Mike had no seed, no offsets. If I
remember
correctly this plant in all parts was much much bigger than
my own bulbs
even during their best days. I have a feeling that it is a
different
plant, a different form of the same species or even another
relates
species. Mike's plant was even bigger than than the ones at
Kew but I do
not remember where he got it from.
Maybe it is simply virused? And lacking and losing vigour
this way? I
saw huge clumps in many Madeiran garden, but it was not the
season for
flowers. If it never sets seed, the only means of
propagation is
vegetatively which would ease the spread of virus. Maybe
this would be
an interesting object for a good micro-propagator?
Greetings from summery hot and VERY dry Germany
Uli
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