Re: a Sunshine-Climate Plant Which Doesn't Like Sun

It was great to read Tim's posting about the Canary foxgloves, Isoplexis.
I'd been planning to post something about these too, but never got around
to it.

I think these plants really do like more humid, less sunny postions. I
collected some seeds from Isoplexis canariensis on the Canary island of
La Gomera in February 1997. They weren't in flower then, just seed
capsules. The plants were growing in an old, derelict garden on the edge
of the Garajonay National Park, a World Heritage Site formed to protect
the unique "laurisilva," or evergreen laurel forest, peculiar to the
Macaronesian islands (Madeira, Azores, Canaries, Cape Verdes). The
habitat was at least partly shady, and very humid: there was primary
forest just a few yards away. At other localities for this species on
Tenerife and Gran Canaria, also in the Canaries, the plants are said to
grow on abandoned cultivation terraces, disturbed ground, open pine
plantations, so they do seem to like formerly disturbed places.

Anyway, I gave some of the seeds away and brought the rest to the U.S.,
where they were sown in spring 1998 and there are now some fine plants in
the Temperate House here at the Missouri Botanical Garden. They flowered
for the first time this spring: a sort of pastel orange. I also planted
two outside in my own garden this spring, where one is in flower as I
write. It is semi-shaded by other plants but hot (to 95F) and *very* humid
(after all, this is St. Louis, Missouri, which some call the armpit of
America...) In winter, it would get too cold, I fear, to keep them outside
(zone 6, just out of zone 5), so I'll have to dig them up and put them in
large pots. The soil is heavy clay, by the way.

My father, back in England, also successfully grew some plants, which he
now has flowering in large pots in his garden in Kettering,
Northamptonshire (about 75 miles N. of London). He reported some
variation in color, ranging from pale orange to a deep, fiery orange. He
had some plants outside last winter, but they were killed by frost; only
the ones in a frost-free greenhouse survived.

There are four species in the genus: I. canariensis is endemic to the
western Canary Islands. Isoplexis sceptrum is endemic to Madeira; it is a
more robust shrub, to 6 feet tall, with wonderful bright orange flowers. I
saw it there in 1989 -- it looks well worth acquiring! There is also
another, very rare species endemic to Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands:
I. chalcantha. Finally, there is I. isabelliana, also a rare,
single-island Canary endemic (I don't remember which island, but have a
vague feeling it is Gran Canaria again). Certainly the Madeiran species
seems to be a plant of humid, wooded places.

Nick.

Nick Turland
Flora of China Project, Missouri Botanical Garden, 
P.O. Box 299, St. Louis, MO 63166-0299, U.S.A.
E-mail: Nicholas.Turland@mobot.org
Phone: +1 314 577 0269  Fax: +1 314 577 9438
MBG web: http://www.mobot.org
FOC web: http://flora.harvard.edu/china/
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