Hymenocallis 2011

[PeterT]

Thanks Jim,
there seem to be a lot of lovely plants whch should be hardy and garden worthy if one could work out how to start them

[Ezeiza]

Peter, Hymenocallises are very slow to reach maturity from seed. And, while some offset resonably well, a lot more remain as single bulbs year after year. They must be grown in large pots. In cold climates, most species must be grown in a frost free greenhouse, and so on.

[PeterT]

one of my fathers prize posesions was a bristle cone pine planted in the rock of a small cliff in our garden. My grandmother was nearly 80 when she saw the first flower on a camelia she had bought 32 years earlier, knowing it would not flower for years.
so i shall wait for the slower bulbs and enjoy the faster ones.

[Maggi Young]

one of my fathers prize posesions was a bristle cone pine planted in the rock of a small cliff in our garden. My grandmother was nearly 80 when she saw the first flower on a camelia she had bought 32 years earlier, knowing it would not flower for years.
so i shall wait for the slower bulbs and enjoy the faster ones.

Makes me feel better about the thirty odd years I waited for my Rhododendron auriculatum to flower.... it has finally done so this month!!

[PeterT]

congratulations Maggie, I take it R giganteum, falconneri, rex, and sinograndes etc flowerd a bit younger for you? 
funny thing was when members of the rock garden club visited and I was only 5, I took these things for granted!

[Maggi Young]

We have two thirds of an acre, total ground, includingthe house, Peter, so I don't grow much in the way of the "big-leaves" ... anyway, they are not so happy here on the east coast so even if I had the space I'd be pushing it to grow those well.

[PeterT]

  we had 3 acres and could have used 30 Maggie. Pruning and bonfires included Cunninghamias, Telopeas, Redwoods,  Fitzroyia, oaks, Stewartia and so on, just to keep the thousands of plants from overwhelming each other!

[Ezeiza]

Do you see, Arda, the incomparable sense of accomplishment when such things finally flower?

[jshields]

Here's a bit of a mystery:  It came to me 10 years ago labeled Hymenocallis from Nayarit.  I assumed it was H. nayaritiana, now properly known as H. jaliscensis, I'm told.  It is just now blooming for the first time -- which does not say much for my husbandry.  I don't have any plants of jaliscensis of known provenance, but comparing it to plants I do have, it seems to be between H. glauca and H. phalangides.  I'd like to see an authentic specimen of jaliscensis as well, but for now I think it is closer to phalangides.

Jim

[Alessandro.marinello]

 Jim
Very nice
but for me difficult to identify several the species, being like giving a name to the ants

[JoshY46013]

I do agree with Alessandro, they're so difficult...  I know it sounds horrible but to me most of them look the same 

[jshields]

They are tricky, and the species of the Mexican Alliance, like my species "cf. nayaritiana," are all fairly closely related to each other.  Jim Bauml made a graduate thesis out of identifying the members of the Mexican group, in fact.  It's too bad that his thesis never seems to have gotten published anywhere, and I have again lost track of where Jim is.

It's easy enough to say, "This is in the glauca group" for instance, but it still does not tell you which valley it came out of.  Each species is found in a discrete geographic area, sometimes in a single valley in the mountains.  This is part of what makes them so interesting.

The species of the Southeastern USA are another group that are fairly closely related, and may be hard to tell apart unless you are growing enough of the various species to be able to make eyeball comparisons.  I have better luck growing most of the Mexican species than I do with the Southeastern species, especially those from Florida.  When folks send me plants to identify, if they are from Florida I'll probably not be able to keep them alive long enough to ID them.  So Hymenocallis can be rather frustrating.

The late Thad Howard's book, "Bulbs for Warm Climates" is a good place to start, but he messed up the Hymenocallis occidentalis/liriosme group.  Better is "Flora of North America," volume 26, the chapter on Hymenocallis by Gerry Smith.  The best thing would be to have Gerry Smith and Jim Bauml sitting at your elbow while you try to sort things out.

[Ezeiza]

Jim, I have a copy of Jim Bauml's monograph along with several of Thad's catalogues but can not find them. This I mention to encourage readers to keep literature in good order and tidy.

[jshields]

Over the years I've asked Jim more than once for a copy of his thesis.  Treasure the copy you have; I still haven't gotten a copy myself.

Jim

[alpines]

I have just been given some "green" hymenocallis bulbils().
Would someone please tell me what I do with them now?
Thanks Folks