Lachenalia aloides split
Mary Sue Ittner via pbs (Fri, 15 Apr 2022 11:36:21 PDT)

I've mentioned before that I find identifying the Lachenalia species
really challenging from Graham Duncan's book. It has been a nightmare
trying to figure out where to put all the previous photos added to the
wiki under Lachenalia aloides before his book was published and it went
from one species to eight. There are a number of reasons why that is
impossible. In the first place he divides them into the dimensions of
the inner tepals, three with tepals 14 to 20 mm, and the rest 23 mm or
longer. There is no way to determine that from a photo. The other
problem with that is when do you measure. Those of us who have grown
Lachenalia understand that the dimensions change dramatically as does
the color of the tepals over time. There are more measurements needed to
distinguish between Lachenalia thunbergii and Lachenalia callista and
between Lachenalia aloides and Lachenalia quadricolor. In the category
for inner tepals 23 mm or longer in his key he includes "outer tepals
not bright red or orange-red" when photos and paintings in his book of
those species show what I'd call orange red to red outer tepals, at
least for part if not all of their flowering time. If you are dividing
something that changes color over time by color when do you decide to
make that determination.

I asked Arnold to take picture of the plant he received from Croft as
Lachenalia callista over time to show the sequence. You can see it here:
https://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…
This is for a species according to the key with outer tepals not bright
red or orange-red, inner tepals bright yellow or greenish yellow, inner
tepals 32-33 mm long, apices widely spreading

Measurements are needed to tell the difference between L. aloides and L.
quadricolor. Those two are the ones we puzzle the most over on this
list. L. quadricolor has outer tepals shorter (10 to 11 mm) and L.
aloides longer (15 to 17 mm). So we probably all need to measure at some
unknown time during the flowering. I don't think you can really go by
the fact that one might start flowering a few weeks before the other
since the flowering period in long enough to include both and besides
for those of us growing plants outside of where they are found in nature
when they start to flower depends on our conditions and also the origin
of the seed. L. quadricolor has inner tepals that are slightly flared
and deep purple magenta and L. aloides  inner tepals with broad red or
purplish red apices with white margins. Remembering when we discussed
our favorite bulbs by color, color is viewed very subjectively. What is
the difference between purple magenta and purplish red? If you look at
iNaturalist for L. aloides you will see photos all over the spectrum and
the white margins hard to see.

Having said all this I have spent far too long trying to figure this out
and add a page to the wiki like Mike Mace did for Moraea tripetala when
it was split up. I've put it off for years. His book was published in
2012 and I guess I was hoping some of the changes would never be
accepted. Creating this page has made my head spin. Here is my attempt
and it is entirely possible that some of the photos I have added to
represent the different species could be wrong.
https://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

As long as I am mentioning my struggles with this and how we all view
color, I find L. vanzyliae to be turquoise and that actually makes it
really easy to distinguish. This is how the key describes it:
Inner tepals translucent white; median keels bright green, broad above

Mary Sue

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