Re: Solanum seafortheanum

In a message dated 20/02/00 18:54:11 GMT Standard Time, tim@eddy.u-net.com 
writes:

<< Jan - I can only help negatively, by saying I doubt if it's ever been
 grown in the UK! - and though I have a dim memory of having read an
 account of someone growing it SOMEwhere, a quick trawl through the
 books of the obvious suspects (Arnold-Forster, Jane Taylor - even the
 U of Indiana lightweight monograph on the Nightshades) hasn't turned
 it up. The same dim memory suggests that it's the same sort of fairly
 massive and vigorous climber as S. crispum, S. jasminoides, S.
 wendlandii - or even S. rantonettii when it gets the wind in its
 sails. Just about all the solanums, I think, grow more vigorously if
 you give them heat AND moisture, so if you want to keep the brutes
 under (semi-) control, keep'em hot and dry. Even S. laciniatum in this
 wet garden can make 15ft in those rare years when we  have a summer
 lasting longer than a week... Although they ARE brutes, I still think
 they're all (well, nearly all) worth growing. I'm particularly fond of
 the 'foliage' species - eg, S. mauritianum, which has survived this
 mild winter (so far) quite happily and hasn't been TOO battered by our
 regular gales.
 
 Not much help, I recognise, but for what it's worth...
 
 Cheers
 Tim
 on the (for once) sunny-but-chilly Solway Firth, Cumbria, UK
 
 
 Tim Longville
  >>
        
    Hello Jan and Tim,

        I've managed to find 2 references to this plant. Firstly, there is a 
photograph of it in Conservatory & Indoor Plants, vol 2, by Roger Phillips 
and Martyn Rix. (ISBN 0-333-67738-2) The entry reads: 'A slender hairless 
evergreen climber with starry light violet-blue flowers, native of Trinidad 
and South America, growing in dry conditions in woodland margins at low to 
medium altitudes, flowering in summer. Scrambling shrub to 6m. Leaves to 
10cm, entire or more often pinnatifid with 3-9 lance-shaped lobes. Flowers 
12-20mm wide, with spreading oblong lobes, in pendulous branched clusters. 
Min. 5C. The starry flowers and divided leaves give this species the 
appearance of a jasmine'. The photograph is of a plant at The Plantsman 
Nursery, Throwleigh, Devon, and according to my second reference, ie, The 
Plant Finder, they offer it for sale, as indeed do Pantiles Plant & Garden 
Centre, Chertsey, Surrey, and The Old Walled Garden, Hadlow, Kent.

    Personally, I don't think it's a patch on S.rantonnetii, S.wendlandii or 
even S.jasminoides 'Album'. (and if you want something which LOOKS like a 
jasmine, then the obvious thing to do...!).

Einion Hughes, Rhyl,
Denbighshire, Wales.
(where the weather's infinitely warmer & sunnier than it is for those poor 
sad unfortunates up in Cumbria)
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