Greetings, The Boohpone disticha seed from comes from two of the planted-out bulbs in my front yard. This year, they bloomed at the same time and I was able to cross them with great success. These bulbs are basically watered year-round - every 2 weeks in the dry season and as often as it rains in winter - and are dormant from October-ish to late May. Dark pink /cerise flowers. The foliage is not extremely wavy but does have some undulation and even a few twists at the leaf tips. I again noticed that the outer, earlier-blooming flowers bore most seeds - none of the innermost blooms made seed. This could be merely the result of the plant detecting sufficient fertilization in the early flowers, I suppose. Last year I also has a single bloom on another Boophone - supposedly sp Aus as labeled by Paul Christian at rareplants (uk). Others questioned the sp Aus label and I also agree these plants bear a close resemblance to ones I got via Penroc/Charles Craib that were called "Eastern Cape evergreen" which, in turn, look similar in foliage to Boophone sp. Port Elizabeth which I have a few of (but which have not yet bloomed). Anyway, this was a long intro to a fairly crappy (but exciting) photograph: http://www.anexaminedlife.net/bulbs/boophone3.jpg Don't get distracted by the mature (and infertile) seedhead from a B. haemanthoides (like last year, only one bloomed) - the excitement is to be seen in the 3(!) blooms emerging from the sp Aus bulbs to the fore & right of the photo. I should have plenty of seed this year :-) And finally, one of the Boophone "Eastern Cape evergreen" species I have planted-out in the front yard is also pushing a bloom stem this year (as it did last year). I will compare it's flowers to the putative sp Aus. Their similar form and near simultaneous bloom suggest an affinity. Are any of the listers among those who got sp Aus from Guy Wrinkle (or a source who wasn't Paul Christian)? I'd love to see an image of the foliage and, even better, the flower and seed pod (even an infertile one). -|<ipp
