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2021.08.29
I own an alarm clock out of a sense of duty, but I very rarely use it. The best days start as the darkness of night wears threadbare and the allure of breakfast looms. Alarms are just too sudden and disrupt the smooth
revolution of the clock, they should be saved for special events like the house burning down. Some plants look so sleepy as they roll through the year that it comes as a shock when an alarm goes off. A week ago Rhodophiala 'Harry Hay' was dormant, now it is in full flower. I don't know what set it off, the trigger for these events often seems obscure. It is usually assumed that autumn bulbs are started into growth by autumn rains but this Rhodophiala has been wet for months. This is not because it needs summer moisture itself but because it grows in a greenhouse with a lot of things that do. The raucous red flowers sound their alarm at the end of August regardless. Rhodophiala have an allure that draws me back to them again and again. They should be grown more widely, they are undoubtedly hardier than Hippeastrum and can produce the same shocking red trumpets. In the case of Rhodophiala these appear at the end of summer after a dry rest. They should be grown more widely, but for one thing. Many Rhodophiala seem to have given up on the idea of flowering and settled for the enthusiastic production of rather dull, wilted-salad-onion leaves instead. Rhodophiala bifida has flower colour that varies from antique pink to deep red and for decades there have been forms that are famed for not flowering. There is the non-flowering red form, the non-flowering pink form. I believe there is even a non-flowering triploid (I am uncertain of the colour of its non-flowers). In this bloomless company, 'Harry Hay' represents a significant improvement. Julian Shaw said that it was "crossed and selected from wild collected seed " ('Harry Hay and his plants',The Plantsman, vol.8 part.3 2009). In a caption to the illustration he added "Rhodophiala 'Harry Hay', flowering in August, is a selection of intraspecific hybrids raised by Harry Hay in which the colour and flower shape and size is constant compared to wild origin plants". Ranneveig Wallis in her 'Buried Treasure' catalogue (2015) says: "Rhodophiala aff. bifida. Harry gave us these bulbs many years ago in order to get them into cultivation. His group showed quite a variation from pale pink to deep red but those that we had are all red. It may well be a hybrid because it is vigorous and flowers with its amaryllis-like trumpets in early September. Treat as any other Mediterranean type bulb with a dryish summer and water in early September. It needs a deep pot or could probably be tried outside." My plant was disturbed in winter in a catastrophic tumble to the floor. It has forgiven the indignity of a hurried repotting and gone on to flower without trouble which emphasises the improvement of this form over the occasionally fickle wild species. Seed of other species with an assortment of names is occasionally available and occasionally it isn't Habranthus tubispathus a vigorous and delightful thing. Caveat emptor! |
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| 14th September 2013 | ||
