Geranium biuncinatum

[maggiepie]

Then it's unlikely to be invasive here.

[Diane Whitehead]

I found my two packets of 1996 biuncinatum seed and sowed them
a few days ago.  They have germinated.  I like seeds with a will to
live.  I have found before that desert seeds don't mind being dry and
old and will germinate as soon as they are moistened.

I hope that they will turn out to be the black-eyed beauty.  The seeds
are from two different exchanges.  One package had small seeds and
the other had seed cases with two curled appendages at one end. I
did not note which packet came from which exchange, but sowed all
the seeds in one pot as I didn't expect them to grow.  Both kinds
have germinated.

One lot was from the AGS, which didn't list the names of donors of
garden seeds.  The other was from NARGS, and the seeds were
donated by three people, none of whose names are familiar to me.
One from Calgary Alberta in Canada, one from Devon in England,
and the third from New South Wales in Australia.

[Diane Whitehead]

I've been waiting and waiting for the buds to open on my super fast
growing biuncinatums.

I finally decided to take a closer look, and what Mark predicted has
happened:  mine are setting seeds without ever producing petals.
These plants are from two different seed exchanges, and one exchange
had seed from three donors.

Shall I save the seeds, or will they carry on with their non-petal ways?

Meanwhile, someone has posted a picture in the Plant ID thread asking
the identity of a Geranium.  Guess which?  And theirs has the cerise flower
with the black centre, just like the picture in the book.

[Paul T]

Sorry Diane.  I didn't mean to upset you by showing the actual flowers.  I didn't know that they usually just set seed without flowering.  The friend's garden that I saw them in had a few flowers on his, so it IS possible for them to flower.   I guess it just has to be the right climate, praying in the right direction, and holding your tongue in exactly the correct position in your mouth while humming the tune of your countries national anthem before the plant actually produces flowers?    I'm guessing I'll never see flowers on the plant I brought home. 

[maggiepie]

Diane, I wouldn't give up until I saw a flower 
Someone in the forum mentioned a violet that took 7 years before it finally flowered. Maybe the next generation might flower?


Paul, keep us up to date on your plant.
Where your friend has his planted, is it full sun or shade, wet or dry etc?

[Paul T]

His is in dappled shade, and they had had 7+ inches of rain in the week or so before we visited (we haven't had 7+inches of rain in the total for our last 6 months!  ).  I don't know whether he gets flowers on them all the time or whether the rain stimulated a flush or not?  Either way, his climate is a bit warmer night temps and far moister than mine here in Canberra.  He's near the Waragamba Dam (which probably also increases the humidity) which is up in the hills to the west of Sydney.

[mark smyth]

ah, just like I said

[Diane Whitehead]

Well, at least it took only a month to show its true nature.  One month
from seed to seedpods.

Violets have pretty flowers and then later, just to make sure of producing
seeds, they have cleistogamous flowers.  I'm not sure whether they
always do this, or whether it is done only when their noticeable flowers
have failed to attract a pollinator.

Maybe there aren't many insects in Yemen, so biuncinatum usually
dispenses with petals.

OK.  I will try a second generation, with lots of watering, and as much
heat as I can muster, though that might be difficult.

[Paul T]

Diane,

My friend's garden gets down to just below freezing, although I would doubt it gets that cold in the area that he has these Geraniums as there is some tree cover that gives the shading etc.  He has far better soil than me, and lots more water.  What part of that combination got flowers for him I don't know.    Next time I talk to him I'll ask him what temp that area of garden gets down to, and whether or not they die each year and return from seed.

[Diane Whitehead]

From what I've read, they are annuals.

We probably match Yemen for cold in winter - the coldest
we have ever had is about -9 C.  In my whole life, the
ground froze only once.  (That was so odd - walking in the
garden felt like walking on pavement, and it took me a while
to figure out how that could be.)

It is the summer heat we won't be able to match.  Our usual
summer temperature is the low 20s, and I am prostrate from
the heat if we get to 28.  This is in the hottest part of the day,
of course.  The temperature drops a lot at night.

[maggiepie]

Diane, I spent the first 50 years of my life in Australia , the heat of summer here kills me, mostly the humidity.
When I complain about the heat people ask me how on earth it can bother me when I lived in Australia for so long.
Sounds like Victoria is about the best place in Canada as far as temps go.( It is also one of the best places in Oz to live  )

[Paul T]

Diane,

I know that my friend's place had a week where they had multiple in the low 40s ('C) this summer.  I was surprised that he was hotter than we were, but the temps were so strange this year here. 

[Diane Whitehead]

I just checked in Peter Yeo's second edition, and he wrote that
the several species in the same section of Geranium as biuncinatum
are all practitioners of cleistogamy.

I think they are all desert dwellers, so they probably don't have
many insects to entice with gorgeous flowers, so why waste the effort?