Eucrosia mirabilis, 1st blooming

[Morabeza]

Hello forum members,

This is my first post here. How many folks are growing Eucrosia mirabilis? I am curious about what conditions, especially temperature ranges, in which growers are growing and blooming this species successfully.

This was purchased as a seedling bulb from Telos Rare Bulbs in 2006 and until this year was grown outdoors in Honolulu where it was quite tolerant of high rainfall whilst in active growth (it has excellent drainage). Each year the leaves have grown larger than the next, much larger than E. bicolor produces. This first-time blooming has really been a treat. 18 - 10cm flowers on a 1m peduncle. I suspect that this plant is at least 7 years old.

This bulb species is endemic to small areas of Ecuador were it grows in very well drained rocky soil on exposed slopes amongst prickly pear cactus. It grows 2 - 40cm paddle-shaped leaves during the season of growth and then goes dormant during the dry season. Blooms appear when plants break dormancy.

It needs bright light, excellent drainage, decent diurnal temperature variation, a cooler winter (warmer than 10°C I believe) and a warm summer. If these growing conditions can be met, it is pretty easy to raise. Aside from these all one needs is time, patience and care not to water when dormant. A nice companion plant to rupicolous Laelia. It will tolerate both high and low humidity.

Pictures:





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[Allen Repashy]

Hello Jacob,

First, thanks for joining us. I have spent many hours on the PBS website, as well as been getting their mailing list for a few years now, and am aware of all the great contributions you have made there. The only knowledge I have of Eucrosia is from browsing the web. Your photos are spectacular and inspire me to keep an eye out for this genus in the future, though I don't think they will be easy to find.

Xeric World is still a young community, and has been built primarily around the Aloe and Agave interested folks so far. Geophytes are definitely near the top of my list and I would much enjoy getting some more talk going here about them.

Enjoy your stay, and please keep sharing. Responses might be slow in coming, but we do have some bulbheads lurking around here who check in now and then.

What have you found to be the flowering and growing season for these bulbs in the Northern Hemisphere?

Cheers, Allen

[Morabeza]

Hi Allen,

Thank you for the warm words and welcome. I think Agave and Aloe are spectacular genera but with a few exceptions I don't choose to grow very many because of issues with space and climate. However I love that so many folks are growing them with such passion. These plants deserve at least as much!

My bulbs came from the incredible bulb maven Diana Chapman of Telos Rare Bulbs. Since this is the first time blooming mine, I can only go by this year's bloom- June. Martin Grantham just announced to the PBS that Seedhunt now has seeds available of this species. This is the first offering of seed that I have heard of since the plant's original introduction (via Chiltern's Seeds as Stenomesson sp. 'White Parasol') into cultivation since it went extinct in cultivation in the late 1800's. It is rare that both seeds and bulbs of this species are on offer simultaneously, I suspect that this would be good time to pounce for anyone who has been wanting to grow this species. (disclaimer: I have no vested interest in either of these enterprises, save enthusiasm for the species on offer)

Jacob

[Allen Repashy]

Thanks Jacob,

Any clue to hardiness from you or Diana possibly. You might not have a clue if you were growing them in Hawaii though... In the seedhunt description it says not frost hardy..... and the pbs site says then need to be above 50F which is downright tropical.... I can easily keep things from freezing, but above 50 would be quite a challenge, and I have doubts that a bulb like this would wither at such a temperature, especially since they appear winter dormant.

Allen

[Morabeza]

Dylan Hannon doesn't think they should even be stored dry outdoors in southern California, so I do think that 50°F/10°C is a good minimum limit. However since this species is winter dormant anyway, all one must do is bring it indoors (grown potted) when it is already dormant in autumn and wait to bring it back out in spring. It is stored bone dry and my bulb is in a 1 gallon pot, so it would take up very little space in a box some place or on a shelf during this time. Perhaps some garages are insulated enough to stay above 10°C?

I'm currently in a Berkeley microclimate of fog-belt at 150m elevation. It's not as consistently cool as the northern SF peninsula is but pretty close. Plants that need summer days above 24°C are out of luck, so I have been growing this indoors this year. The plant was grown in Honolulu before that.

[Morabeza]

Basically our weather is like that of Lesotho!