[pbs] ref Bulbous Genus 'BRODIAEA' in Alliaceae
Mary Sue Ittner
msittner at mcn.org
Sat Apr 12 21:31:44 EDT 2008
Dear Iain,
In 2003 and 2004 I organized a topic of the week where each week or less
often in the second year we talked about a subject of interest. Usually
someone introduced the topic and some of these introductions were very
thorough and enlightening. I linked them all to the wiki so they could be
easily found at a later date.
We talked about three genera in what we call the Brodiaea alliance:
Brodiaea, Dichelostemma, Triteleia. Some are still considering these to
belong to the Themidaceae family. Since many of these plants are native to
California and I am interested in my native plants I did the introductions.
Some of the species are mountain plants and would be under snow in winter.
Others are foothill plants where it wouldn't be as cold, but certainly
freezing during their growing period. Others are coastal where temperatures
are more moderate. You'd probably do better with the ones from higher
elevations. Most of them come up in late fall after it starts raining after
the dry summer (although the mountain ones I grow are later to appear),
grow during winter and spring and bloom spring into summer before they go
dormant. The mountain ones would have thunderstorms in summer, but the
Mediterranean areas of California almost never get rain after it stops in
spring until sometime in the fall. Coastal areas get some moisture from
fog, but the soil is quite dry where the corms would be. The general advice
is to keep them dry in summer as heat and water during dormancy is thought
to cause problems. Some are probably more tolerant of summer water. There
is a lot of information on the wiki, but here are my Topic of the Week
Contributions:
Triteleia:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/pbs/2003-January/000108.html
Dichelostemma:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/pbs/2003-May/003016.html
Brodiaea:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/pbs/2003-June/subject.html
I wrote about the last one every day and others joined in too, so I just
listed the archives. Look for the posts under Brodiaea. There would be
additional posts on Triteleia in the January 2003 archives and on
Dichelostemma in the May 2003 archives.
Blooming in my garden at the moment are Triteleia crocea, Triteleia
hyacinthina, a form of Triteleia ixioides, and Triteleia laxa.
Dichelostemma capitatum is appearing throughout the garden. I think I saw
one Brodiaea open today, but most of them bloom much later. But we've had
weeks of dry weather and warm temperatures and I'm afraid the blooming
period may get shortened but my garden has been a riot of amazing bright
colored bulbs for quite awhile now as my South African bulbs have been
putting on quite a show.
I hope this helps.
Mary Sue
More information about the pbs
mailing list