x Ruthyrospolia 'Phyllis van Heerden'
- To: medit-plants@ucdavis.edu
- Subject: x Ruthyrospolia 'Phyllis van Heerden'
- From: t*@eddy.u%2Dnet.com (Tim Longville)
- Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 20:47:57 GMT
Just a few quick postscripts to my earlier posting on this beauty:
(1) It has a v. long flowering season and individual flowers last a v.
long time. It's been in flower here for at least 6 weeks, some of the
earliest flowers are still in good condition, and there are many, many
more flowers still to come, and new spikes still developing. I.e., I
would guess a flowering period of something like 3 months.
(2) I thought originally it produced flowering spikes only at the ends
of branches. Wrong. It produces them in the axels of every set of
leaves. It's just that the terminal spikes appear first.
(3) The friend who gave me my original cutting tells me that it comes,
not from the Cape, but from the Western Province - and from stony
hillsides there.
(4) All the same, she says that S. African textbooks say it needs a
good deal of water. That's certainly my own experience. Difficult to
understand why, it must be said: anyone have any theories?
(5) Said S. African textbooks consider that, when it's made some
hardened wood, it will stand several degrees of frost, so it should
certainly be perfectly feasible in much of Calif., the more sheltered
parts around the Med - and possibly even (here's hoping) suitable West
Coast nooks in the UK.
(6) My friend's original plant came, not from Kirstenbosch but from
Witkoppen Nursery near Jo'burg. I don't know if they are willing to
export plants...
Tim Longville
