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Tulbaghia are a little promiscuous, so it has occasionally happened that the species as grown in cultivation differs a little from the species as found in the wild,
as a result of sex in the greenhouse. Lets move on with the observation that it isn't always satisfactory. I have had the wrong thing before grown under
this name, but this came from seed from Silverhills in 2007, and is the real thing. Quite delightful, I have a couple of slight colour variations that I may
select out at a later date. In Tulbaghia terms it is a robust plant with a thick rootstock. Plantzafrica says: "A lovely, small and delicate bulbous perennial, with garlic-scented, edible leaves and sweetly fragrant flowers almost all year round. Tulbaghia acutiloba grows in dry rocky grasslands, up to 1 800 m altitude, in the summer rainfall regions of southern Africa, occurring in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Gauteng, North West, Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces of South Africa, and in Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana. The genus Tulbaghia was originally named by Linnaeus after Ryk or Rijk Tulbagh, who was Governor of the Cape Colony, 1751–71. Born in Holland in 1699, he enlisted with the Dutch East India Company, sailed to South Africa in 1716, and died in Cape Town in 1771. He corresponded with Linnaeus over a long period, and sent him more than 200 plant specimens. This genus was first described from material sent by Tulbagh in 1769. The species name acutiloba means ‘sharply pointed lobes’ in Latin and probably refers to the pointed tepals." |
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| 16th August 2009 | ||
