Aloe pearsonii flowering in So Cal

[Sarmis Luters]

Hi,
I have an Aloe pearsonii showing
a first time ever flower spike. Will post
pics as it developes.

Can anyone share their
experience as to when this species
flowers here Southern California or
anywhere else?

I'm aware Brian Kemble created a
hybrid using this species called "Hell's
Bells" or "Hellskloof." I have this and it's
extremely fast growing compared to
A. pearsonii.

I am excited as this is a rare aloe and
hopefully I can set some seed with it!

regards,
sarmis luters
redondo beach, ca

[aloenut]

Hi Sarmis,
Congrats! August is the usual flowering time up here in Oakland.

Cheers,

John

[Kelly Griffin]

Do you have two clones of pearsonii flowering? one only? you maybe in the mode to make hybrids like Brian as well.

Kelly

[Tim Harvey]

A friend of mine regularly flowers pearsonii, and produces hybrid and pure seed. His observation is that his plants quite often lose their roots when they bloom. Might be worth keeping an eye on.

I have quite a few pearsonii hybrids, F1 and F2. I have not found a pleasing way forward yet.

T

[Quinton]

Hi Tim,

I have never made hybrids with Aloe pearsonii but have always been curious about them. I have only seen pics of Brian's "Helskloof Bells" Could you possibly post a few pics of the ones you have, I would love to see them.

Thanks
Quinton

[Sarmis Luters]

The A. pearsonii flowering is one of two from the late Abbey Gardens of Carpinteria.

It has been undergrown and ignored in a companion pot with Adasonia za.
This way I feel the bigger plant will take up most of the water and keep the
A. pearsoniis on the dry side. Yeah, I should have put them in the ground many years ago but yes I still have them, ALIVe and undergrown!

In regard to Tim Harvey's comment, yes the flowering plant looks like it may be flowering in response to stress, the leaves are not the usual plump character as its sister plant has, so it may be on its way out?

Also the flower spike is tiny, it may just go out like a quick "firecracker" rather than develop to a "normal" size. My recently flowering A. karasbergensis did a quick bloom with tiny flowers that did not seem to mature fully??

I will try to pollinate this pearsonii with whatever I have, most of my recently flowering aloes are spent with some pods.

best,
sarmis luters
redondo beach, ca

[Sarmis Luters]

Hi,
I added one last pic of my A. pearsonii flower spike with several open flowers.

From what I have seen on the Internet, using image search, the flowers
I have are a bit small in size compared to what I see in the pictures.

I used Google image search and, also Davesgarden.com is a GREAT place to search for info and ID help with particular succulents you may have. It has quite a few pic contributions and if you try, you may finally get an ID for plant you have long lost the label or name from memory.

Also habitat fotos of A. pearsonii show both yellow, like mine, and red flowers!

Is this just a variability of this species or are there different forms of A. pearsonii??

thanks,
sarmis luters
redondo beach, ca

[Tim Harvey]

It's natural variation. Yellow flowered forms of species (or red, depending on what is the most common) used to be described as forms, but that trend seems to have disappeared. I was musing the other day that there seem to be yellow forms of most red flowered species. Any comments anyone?

Still looking for the yellow vaombe ...

T

[Brian Kemble]

There are a lot of Aloe species, especially ones from east and northeast Africa and from Arabia, which come in either red or yellow-flowered forms. Some Southern African species are like this as well, including A. pearsonii, which is always a summer-flowering species (as are most of its relatives, like distans & mitriformis, etc.). If one crosses a red with a yellow, what comes out are some red-flowered plants and some yellow-flowered plants, but not orange ones as one might expect.

When I made that cross between A. pearsonii and A. distans, what I had in mind was a pearsonii-like plant which would grow more vigorously and be less finicky. Incidentally, it was John Trager who named it 'Hellskloof Bells' (I did not care for this name, and wanted to call it 'Roman Candle' because the capitate inflorescence reminded me of fireworks, but John was listing it for ISI and so I told him to go ahead and name it as he wished). It should be grown in lots of sun so it is reddish all over to look its best.

Quinton - I have photos of it only as slides, but perhaps I can take a picture now, since it is in flower, and post it. Unless someone else has a photo they can post.

[Quinton]

Thanks Brian, I would appreciate some good pics of "Helskloof Bells" and any other Aloe pearsonii hybrids .

[Wesley Chin]

Hi Quinton,

Here is a link of A. 'Hellskloof Bells':

ISI 2007 | Aloe ‘Hellskloof Bells’ Trager

[Quinton]

Thanks Wesley!

If anyone has pics of other Aloe pearsonii hybrids I would really like to see them. Thanks

[Sarmis Luters]

I guess I am the butt of nature's joke, my other Aloe pearsonii is also flowering for the first time but it won't be in sync with the one that has just flowered?!

You can see the start of the flower spike on top of the lower right plant.

I can count my blessings to have and see A. pearsonii flowering for the first time, I just hope they do it again next year at the same time??

best,
sarmis luters
redondo beach, ca

[aloenut]

Sarmis,
Freeze some of the pollen from the first and use it on the second. I am currently doing that for pearsonii, meyeri and abyssicola. I use a tuperware container with scrunched up tissue in the bottom. I check the first plant daily and put whatever flowers have good pollen into the container daily. When the second one is ready then I just take out a flower a day from the freezer, use it and discard it.

Cheers,

John

[Sarmis Luters]

Thank you John Miller, Brian Kemble and
Allen for the valuable information.

I found some interesting aloes in flower
and have successfully pollinated the
A. pearsonii with 8+ seed pods for results,
so far!

The A. pearsonii flower is quite small and my
eyes not being what they used to be, I
find it difficult to grab let alone pollinate
this plant without bifocals.

Regarding freezing pollen, this is quite
an issue of importance with cycad pollen.
It's known that simply putting the pollen
in the freezer will cause the moisture
in the pollen when frozen to burst
the pollen sacs. So using the methods
as Allen, Brian and John described
will work.

regards,
sarmis luters
redondo beach, ca

[Allen Repashy]

I moved the posts in this thread about pollen storage to their own thread called "Pollen Storage" and actually created a new forum called "Plant Breeding" I think this subject is worthy of it's own forum, and the topic is worthy of it's own thread.

http://www.xericworld.com/forums/pla...n-storage.html