Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Seedy Subjects! => Grow From Seed => Topic started by: Diane Whitehead on April 27, 2007, 12:04:07 AM
-
I was excited to see growth today from my Oxalis 'Ewan McBride' seeds.
I have never grown oxalis from seeds before, so don't know what they should
look like, but these ones don't meet my expectations. Are they right?
The background is quarter inch graph paper. The seeds are small, shiny,
red-brown.
-
Your post reminds me that I have never grown oxalis from seed, Diane....but I can still be of help, i think... I will pass this on to Harold McBride, who, unless I am very much mistaken, is the father of Ewan!
-
Oh, dear, it has happened again... yes, I AM VERY much mistaken! I asked Harold McBride to comment on this and he has replied .. "I noted the" Ewan Mc Bride" in the recent SRGC Seed list - I took it to be a misprint ! ie Gwen Mc Bride .
Gwen Mc Bride is a fertile Hyb from which I have raised many seedlings . If this is not the case I can not claim to be Ewans father
As far as I know !!!! [ I refuse to submit to DNA] ." ::)
Gwen McBride is a fine plant, which I will try to find a photo of... very much worth growing, so it looks as if you are on some kind of winner, Diane!
-
Here is a close-up of Oxalis 'Gwen McBride' from the old Forum, a photo of Mark Smyth's
[attach=1]
This page gives a photo by Magnar Aspaker
http://magnar.aspaker.no/Oxalis%20Gwen%20Mc%20Bride.jpg
This and other photos are on this SRGC page, too: http://www.srgc.org.uk/discus/messages/283/35051.html
The oxalis is a beauty but it hasn't the charm of the real Gwen McBride, whom I haven't seen for too many years!
-
I don't have any Oxalis in my garden a situation that I must remedy. Have I read somewhere that one species is an absolute thug??
-
LOTS of oxalis species are thugs! Stick with O. adenophylla, O. enneaphylla, O. laciniata and hybrids thereof and you'll be okay! these are all forthe open garden. O. hirta and O. lobata aren't likely to trouble you, only please you! There may be others that forumists can recommend as behaving in a responsible fashion .....????? ???
-
Thanks Maggi
-
There are approx 800 Oxalis species David. Stick with Maggi's suggestions and some of the others are great as well, but if in doubt - if you don't know the sp - always grow in a pot first to see how it's going to behave. Many are tender and thuggish but are kept in control by frosts. Others are worse than sorrel, convolvulus, Californian thistle.
-
That's good advice Lesley.
-
David
Oxalis are one of my favourites but some are absolutely diabolical in their abilty to propagate by seed and bulbils! The Bermuda Buttercup, O. pes-caprae is a weed in just about every country in the world and infests wide tracts of land, especially roadsides, in Australia.
I've posted a pic of O. palmifrons (http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=473.0)which is adorable until it turns up 20cm away from where you planted it and it keeps moving!
"Safe" ones here include Oo. massoniana, gracilis, lobata, hirta, versicolor and flava.
The choicer ones like Oo.adenophylla, laciniata and enneaphylla are rare here because they DON'T grow like weeds!
cheers
fermi
-
Fermi, thanks for that. Enjoy your trip to Prague (and to Aberdeen). Apparently one of the Aberdeen tourist attractions is a girl who wears a blue anorak-you may see her!
-
My oxalis seedlings are still green and growing but look grassy - single narrow
leaves, each about 4 to 5 cm long.
They began growing at the end of April.
Shouldn't they be making a different sort of leaf by now?
-
Some species have almost thread-like leaflets but still usually in 3s or mores (if you see what I mean). Can you do a picture Diane?
-
the tiny brown leaved, yellow flowered, stoloniferous plant is superb
-
not!!
-
Mark
The little green leafed one is worse. I have plenty of both to swap if anyone wants them ::)
-
I can't do a picture of my thread-leaved oxalis yet - my camera has been on loan
photographing my grandchildren.
However, I investigated the roots to see what kind of storage organ they are
developing, and they aren't. Just a single white thread root at the bottom of
each single green thread leaf.
Maybe I AM growing grass. Just to check, I looked back at the first message posted,
and the round seeds are not at all grassy.
Do all oxalis have some sort of storage root? When does that develop?
-
Here's the photo of a purported seedling from Oxalis Gwen McBride (called Ewan McBride
in the last SRGC seedlist).
An ungerminated seed is also shown.
Can this simple leaf possibly mature into the complex leaves of O. laciniata?
-
looks like a grass seedling like I get in my pots
-
I don't see any evidence of a seed, similar to the loose one, attached to the root of the seedling. I would deduce that the seedling is not related to the seed sown and, like Mark, would liken it to the grass that I am good at cultivating.
-
They can't be grass. They were attached to the seeds when they first sprouted,
though the attachments can barely be seen in the picture in the first message
in this discussion, taken when I removed the seeds from their plastic bag.
I don't sow large seeds into pots. I presprout them, and only when they are growing
do they get put into a pot of soil-free mix. I never get weeds until much later, when
the weeds are never grass, but instead, ferns and conifers.
-
Can this simple leaf possibly mature into the complex leaves of O. laciniata?
In a word - NO.
O. laciniata and similar-leaved species such as O. enneaphylla, germinate (with me anyway) as a trifoliate leaf, very tiny, with a distinct stem and the three leaflets on top of that. There's really no mistaking them for anything other than the mature species. Oxalis seeds in this section are very pale, almost milk-white, rather than dark like yours. I'd suggest some other kind of bulbous plant. The seed isn't like a grass seed either.
Many oxalis don't have a storage organ though. Think of that beastly little O. corniculata which crepes around one's drabas and other cushions and is impossible to get rid of. It has a root system like most other small herbaceous plant, no bulbs at all.
-
The flower on 'Gwen McBride' is an absolute corker. Those veined type flowers are very pretty in the pics I have seen. Never actually come across them in person here in Aus as yet, but maybe one day.
Good luck with the seedlings Diane, Apparently the bulbous Oxalis seldom set seed in captivity, so you've done well. I can't recall ever seeing seed on any of my Oxalis (Yes, another one of my addictions! <sigh> Is there anything I don't try to collect?) collection other than O. carnosa which is one of the species that forms a succulent trunk type arrangement. The seeds look the right shape, but the shoots I would agree just don't look right for what I'd be expecting from Oxalis. I would be very doubtful though that a simple linear leaf like that would be an Oxalis seedling, but it is possible as I haven't grown them from seed myself. I would have expected all Oxalis to have tripartite lseed leaves myself.
The range of leaf forms in Oxalis is amazing. There are those as mentioned with thread-like blades on their leaves (grouped like fingers on a hand), some look like miniature fern/palm leaves that you'd never believe were Oxalis unless you were told. Some of the species have leaves that fold up at night so they look totally different to in the daytime, etc. A rather facinating genus, albeit much maligned because of their weedy relatives who are to be avoided at all costs. The good thing is that most of them DON'T set seed much, because that allows them to be contained in pots successfully.