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Keying is something I’ve been doing with varying degrees of success since beginning to learn about British flora – I now have The ‘Rose’ Wild Flower Key, the Stace (4th Edition) Flora of the British Isles and the Poland Vegetative Key. The Rose has been my most successful ‘go to’ although I do also really like the Veg key for the multitude of things that never seem to be in flower when I want to know what they are!

The Stace is a new addition – certainly it steps the complexity up a notch but also the range of possibilities for keying.

As a test and to get better at this I decided to really really really work on keying out something correctly from a known flower – in this case a primrose (from my garden but also native).

So using Rose;

Master Key.

1.Plants with flowers present – 2
2.Plants with the individual flowers of varied size, but each possessing a separate and clearly visible flower stalk of its own. – 5
5.Individual flowers (not an umbel) – 6
6.Green leaved plants – 7
7.Flowers regular with petals spreading out from centre in star, cup, bell and all equal. -8

8. Leaves alternate or opposite or in basel rosette (Primrose is). – 9

9. Flowers with perianth comprising of disting calyx and corolla – 10. First real hit of botanic language, basically are the sepals and petals distinct from each other.

10.Flowers with petals joined forming corolla tube (tube of petals). -13 This can be tricky but removing the sepals shows this more clearly.
13.Flowers with ovary superior (this one ALWAYS trips me up) – J

Key J

1. Petals joined in obvious tube – 3

3. Stamens as many as, or fewer than corolla-lobes – 5 In both cases its 5 – stamens and lobes

5. Ovary not divided into 4 lobes – 6

6. Stamens same number or corolla lobes. – 7 again 5 in each case

7. Stamens opposite corolla lobes – 8 almost impossible to tell really or at least for me

8. One style, leaves all in basel rosette. – Primulacea page 231

For superior/inferior ovary – I try to remember this; “An ovary that is below the attachment of the petals, sepals and stamens. “

The stamens opposite corolla lobes was really difficult, as it was I had to gently dissect the flower to see the stamens, ovary and style. I’m still interested how field botanists do this outside with wind and (I assume) without time, tweezers, a steady hand and a flat white sheet of paper on a desk… practise maybe.

I keep running through everything I find both known and unknown to gain a better understanding of how keys work. I may show this example again but from Stace (4th) in a later post.

Anyone following my twitter feed (anyone?) would have seen my recent pictures of African violets (saintpaulia). I started with a couple of these charming little plants mostly out of curiosity and a desire to grow something on my windowsill to brighten up my home office a little. My initial couple of plants didn’t do well (with one exception) so I read a bit more and tried a couple of further plants. Happy to say I now seem to have cracked it – I now have about 11 big plants of various types and plan to get more. They really do brighten up my home office and have the added advantage, that unlike my other plants I can hand them off to people without them wondering what it is I’ve just handed them!

I almost always try some sort of propagation of my plants because – well free plants. Propagation for AV seems easy but always has caveats attached; trim the stalk; but not too much; not too much water; you can start them in water alone; middle leaves only; etc etc I started a few off in my standard mix (1/3 each peat, perlite and vermiculite) kept reasonably moist in a propagator out of full sun. Then I decided to get creative. I’d been reading a lot about hydroponics and the various methods used. Being a bit techy it appeals to both that side of me as well as the plant lover.

The simplest form of hydroponics seems to be wicking – something that is also familiar to AV growers as a means of keeping the soil based medium wet. A wick (in my case cotton rope) is placed in water with the other end stuffed into the base of a pot containing what you’d like to grow. Water is moved by capillary action from the water store to the pot keeping the plant (or cutting) moist without getting it wet. Hydroponics simply means a soil-less medium, but the process is the same.

For my version I’ve used small seedling pots that conveniently fit into the mouth of mayonnaise, pasta sauce and peanut butter jars. The wick is wrapping around the inside of the pot which is then filled with perlite. The other end of the wick dangles into a water reservoir held in the bottom half of the pot. A very weak dilution of AV fertilizer is added to the water as well. Finally the pot is wrapped in silver duct tape, both to keep the water from getting too warm and also to slow the algae growth in the weak fertilizer water mix.

Basic setup is show in the pictures below

17th Dec

I dropped the pot whilst adding water – maybe not ideal for the experiment, but did mean I could show root development.

8th Jan

Early plant development, despite being dropped (*cough* twice) the plant forms its first leaves.

29th Jan

The plant is growing on well. At some point I’ll take everything out and divide (if needed) and repot in a more traditional medium. They can then be given away or put on ebay.

Last summer was my first real attempt at British botany – I mostly blundered around in a haze, periodically looking at plants and trying to figure out what they were. A winter followed where I did a lot of reading before finally spring again returned and I could get outside and look at plants again.

This year I’ve been more targeted with my botany – having deliberate trips to nature reserves and nearby woodland but still employing my scattergun approach when I found things I hadn’t seen before. That’s reflected in this years list of plants identified. One of the early entries is Wood anemone which I of course knew from first glance, but had no memory at all of ever seeing it before on one of my regular local walks. I’m starting to believe that once you ID a plant you then begin to see it everywhere as it sticks out of the usual ‘plant blindness’ that most people walk around with. Green alakanet being another example – suddenly everywhere I looked this summer I saw its small blue flowers and was warning people to pull it out of their gardens. More interesting entries this year are focused on orchids – already a passion of mine as an indoor grower, its lovely to see the native species. One minor failure was dragging my partner to a meadow to have a very quick look for orchids when we should have been driving elsewhere, finding one poor example, getting back to the car and then realising the entire bank we’d parked next to was carpeted in them!

I’ve not reached another 50 species this year, coming about 12 short but that’s down to now feeling like I can ID pretty much everything common in my local area that I often walk in and a summer doing a lot of other things. Spring for me is normally my botanising time, but this year autumn has proved to have had some highlights as well. I made a trip especially to see Autumn Crocus (Colchicum autumnale) and also ID’ed my first aquatic species as my ‘other’ hobby involves a lot of time in water.

To go along with all of this I’ve also tried to increase my knowledge of herbalism without being too middle class hippy about it! I can confirm just how useful plantain is when I got seriously stung whilst blackberry picking this year but I’ve not been brave enough to try much else.

Year began with snowdrops

 

Then continued with Vinca (seen before) and the Green alakanet (Pentaglottis sempervirens)

Then a walk in the woods lead me to Violets – first assumed sweet then better keying led me to dog.

Then a visit to an amazing meadow got me  Green winged orchid (Anacamptis morio), Cuckoo flower (Cardamine pratensis) and Common twayblade (Neottia ovata)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few other bits and piece followed but then I went off on a sadly fruitless hunt for butterfly orchids and found Hairy St Johns wort (Hypericum hirsutum) and Ragged Robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi) instead!

 

 

 

 

 

More bits and pieces before another trip back to the amazing meadow to see Autumn Crocus (Colchicum autumnale)

This summer in the UK has been one of the warmest we’ve had in sometime so while some of my outdoor plants have grown brilliantly (tomatoes, datura) its not really been the best time to grow cool loving highland orchids.

Normally in the highland tank I can count on temps of around 20°C during the day and then that dropping at night.  This year the day time temps have been ok even at the height of the heatwave getting to no more than 21-22°C but given the warmth outside I wasn’t getting the cooling at night.  In the end I settled on a combination of a cheap Chinese  evaporation cooler and ice packs to mostly get the drop needed.  It wasn’t quite as much as would be ideal but it helped.

It does seem that the orchids haven’t minded too much and a number have flowered with others showing plenty of new growth.   Oddly even one of my hybrid phalaenopsis which normally flower after a period of cool temperatures has decided to put on a display.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And last, but by no means least the phalaenopsis.

 

 

 

To spend some time away from orchids and carnivorous plants (all doing well, thanks). I’ve spent some time recently looking at begonias. Not the flowery types, more usually seen in grandmas garden but the rhizomatous types that make interesting and unusual house plants. My first adventure lead to begonia pavonina which will feature in a later post, but as I’m growing that from seed, I decided to go and buy a couple of species to get my collection (it always turns into a collection sooner or later) started.

One of these was begonia soli-mutata the ‘sun change’ begonia. This species is a relatively recent discovery. It was featured in 1981 in the magazine of the American Begonia society as species U003 before being named as soli-mutata. It was introduced into cultivation thanks to Roberto Burle Marx a landscape architect in Rio de Janeiro who was among the first voices speaking up for preservation of Brazilian rainforest and its species.

The species has creeping short horizontal stems spreading outward. The petioles (stems) are green with a pink tinge and woolly hairs. The leaves are green/brownish with light green veins and postulate short hairs.

The species common name ‘sun change’ literally comes from the fact that the leaves can change colour depending how intense the light is. The structures in the leaves that contain chlorophyll; the chloroplasts, change orientation in order to capture more light. They align vertical as sunlight increases and horizontal as it decreases. This movement affects the colour of the leaves. In bright light conditions the leaves lighten and become light green/brown/redish. In darker conditions the leaves become a much darker green. This change happens within 10 minutes becoming more pronounced as time passes.

Its clear to see in the pictures below – of the same leaf, same angle same background but taken about 30 minutes apart.

 

Its been a little while since I posted, blame work.

Got a couple of ‘basic’ post ideas, orchids, pings, outdoor carnivorous plant bog and starting up in UK botany again this spring but orchids are top of my mind right now.

First up my Paphiopedilum bellatulum – I saw this orchid at the society show I attended back in October last year and was pretty blown away with it.  I took a chance on getting one, growing it on a south facing window, slightly shaded and keeping it on the dryer side but giving it more water in the warm weather.  It seemed to like me, as I was rewarded with a beautiful spike and flower that’s lasted over a month at the time of writing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the ‘cool’ tank I use for my Masdevallias things are growing madly again. The winter slowed everything down – I was getting cold nights which suited most of the species (not all) then days that were not much warmer which wasn’t encouraging growth.  Going into spring I got much better conditions with a nice night time drop and still a daytime temp that wasnt too high.

Getting into summer the situation during the day is fine but I’ve added some cooling at night to drop temps that little bit more.  Everything is growing well and I’ve been rewarded with growth and blooms.

I’ve wondered for a while how to write this, or even if to write it at all but here goes. As a keen grower in his mid 30s I was interested in attending a local orchid society to mostly see if I could learn anything and to share in my love of the plants. The experience has been an interesting one. I’m not going to say what society, but its not hard to work out.

I’m a big believer in communities of like minded people sharing a common interest. As a teenager and into my early 20s I was a member of such a group (not plant related) and learned massive amounts about the subject as well as life from the other members. More recently, I’m on the committee and an instructor in a more energetic pursuit than orchids and we’ve all worked hard to attract new members and enthuse and train existing ones. So I was looking for something similar from the plant world even if on a smaller scale.

I’d like to make it clear at this point before I go any further and get a bit ‘ranty’ all the people in the orchid society(s) I’ve spoken to (there is a key point there) have been friendly, knowledgeable and passionate about the subject and this is no way a reflection on them personally.

The first meeting I attended in fairness may not have been the best example, it was a short meeting, in the summer. The initial reaction when I walked in seemed to be (and I hope I’m not being unfair) that I must have got the wrong building/time. Once established I was an interested grower some members were talkative and interested in what I grew and how I grew it…. One did inform me (unprompted) that the display table orchids were not for sale. I’m not sure how to take that still. I was disappointed in the content or lack of and the size of the meeting but chalked it up to experience and the time of the year.

My second attempt was attending their show, bit of a drive for me, but I went along, saw some amazing plants and basically wondered around in a plant induced haze for a while then drove home. I did attempt to engage in a conversation at the societies table but was basically ignored. The show was small, but I had an enjoyable time apart from the drive over.

Third occasion was more successful – back to a meeting in the autumn and I brought along a plant. Plant did rather well, same people who were chatty last time, still friendly and chatty and the lecture was very interesting. Only real negatives seem to be again being blanked – I don’t say that as if they where being rude, more I suspect I simply didn’t fit into the world view of the people there who were much older. Age it seems is one of the barriers to entry – I can no longer consider myself young (more the pity) and I like to think I’m friendly, chatty and able to talk to people (lord knows I do enough of it elsewhere) but I have to acknowledge I am much younger than the other society members and it may simply be hesitation on their part about engaging with me. Should they ever read this – say hello – I’m a nice person, honest! On this occasion I become a fully paid up member of the society. Willingly and happily so. Long may it continue.

Fourth time round was the yearly AGM….. now this is where it all goes a bit wrong. Its apparent that the society is quite literally dying. The almost exclusively elderly members are not being replaced by newer members (of ANY age). The society is running at a massive loss and surviving only on reserves in the bank. Nothing, not one thing was said about trying to improve this situation or even an acknowledgement it was a problem. It seemed to me as if everyone (all 14 people in the room) were resigned to the fate that they would simply either run out of money or die off one by one until there was nothing left. The was a member of another local society in the room and he also confirmed the situation there was much the same. I found this a depressing thought – as mentioned above societies are something I’m keen on. So I’ve wondered about the issues faced and how it may be possible to do it better.

Firstly there is no way in the modern age to run a society without the use of email, a website and (God help us) Facebook. The society does have a website and it lists basic details about time and place and that’s all – fine I suppose in its way – but it has other complications in that the ownership lies with someone who is not a member and has no interest in updating or improving the site and can/may take it down at any point. There is a bigger story here, but that’s for another day and time.

There is a Facebook group and the lady responsible has done excellent work in setting it up. Trouble is, non of the members post to it apart from her and occasionally me. Other people do, but they don’t come along (as far as I know) to meetings. I know for sure that for at least one of those posters its due to age and issues with being patronised in the past. Its a shame as he looks to be an amazing grower with some really quite serious knowledge.

Email – again there is an email list (its tiny) that the newsletter gets sent to but thats all. It may be the demographics mean email is not the communication method of choice.

So the base infrastructure exists certainly, but is not being used by the membership or to encourage or engage with prospective members. There needs to be a push from the society to engage through the mediums above as well as better advertising of shows and then actively trying to recruit people who walk through the door. This needs to tie in with more energy in the room at meetings, a welcoming of new people who may or may not fit the current demographic and a real push at moving forward and away from the inevitable decline. This, I’m afraid to say, I don’t see happening.

Despite the bitterly cold weather the UK has seen since Jan and the fact the worst now seems to be coming at the end of Feb I’ve started the year optimistic about my botany journey.

My ‘first’ loves of carnivorous plants and orchids are largely doing ok, nothing very exciting to report, although the Pleiones mentioned below have started to emerge and my very first Phalenopsis orchid I’ve had for years has again bloomed.  Couple of small spikes coming in on the cool growing Masdevallias but thats all.

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t grow many sundews (Drosera) as I find I don’t have the light requirements for the tropical ones.  This year I’m trying to grow a bunch of UK natives from seed so I’ll see how that goes.    I do however have a nice few Drosera aliciae coming up and my reliable Drosera dichrosepala have flowered for the first time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition to the British native sundews, I’m also trying to get a larger number of Pinguicula grandiflora grown from hibernicula.  I did have two adults in my bog garden, but something (squirrel I think) seems to have taken a liking to them and they’re no longer there, just a nice little hole.  Most are outside so currently shivering in -2degrees C temps, one however thinks its early spring as its in with my masdevallias in the highland tank.

 

 

 

 

 

As I continue to learn about British natives I keep my eyes open for new plants even at this time of the year.  On my most recent walk I found species I knew and keep my eyes open for things to submit to the ever excellent #wildflowerhour on twitter (usually I’m a day late).

My recent submissions are below.   Starting with a poor ill looking Periwinkle (Vinca not sure if major or minor) then Dogs mercury (Mercurialis perennis).

Next in the pictures are some of the crocuses I’ve seen out this year – not native species but they naturalise well.  The first cluster was in a dog crap infested path leading off a canal toepath, the later bunches in a locked compound in the heart of the industrial black country (Dudley).  How either set got there is a total mystery but they really gave both stops some much needed colour!

Finally – the old winter flower staples of Snowdrops and Gorse.

I should probably call this post IANOTNDIPOOTV (I am not a Taxonomist, nor do I play one on TV). In the orchid world, I read articles and have seen references to how annoyed some growers get when taxonomists mess around with the names of plants.  Until today, I’d not really understood what all the fuss was about, I mean, surely the work of writing a new label or two over the course of a year is a small price to pay. Especially if you’re as anal as me about having things correct. I realise the details below may do nothing other than highlight my own ignorance, but from my trawlings online, it seemed the following is still unclear to a number of growers.

I’ve written below about how the autumn and winter of last year (2017) hadn’t been great for my Pinguicula growing, but from December things are looking up. The plants should be dormant and indeed most are looking like they have winter growth (more succulent looking leaves, less curled and dewy) and those species that form tight buds like my gypsicolas are indeed in bud form. Even more extreme example is Pinguicula acuminata – a month ago it had lost most of its broad sticky summer leaves and formed a tight little bud. See pic below, now its lost even that single remaining leaf and is buried in its winter bud.

I like this species a lot and its grown well for me, if a little slowly, over the last year. Despite the dormancy, a number of my pings are flowering profusely in winter. Including species of Pinguicula esseriana and Pinguicula jaumavensis.

Which leads to the meat of the article – One of these flowers is my esseriana and one is the jaumavensis. Identical.

Luckily I had another jaumavensis in flower also shown below. This one did show some differences from the others. Trouble is – they’re both from the same original batch of plants. So assuming I’ve actually been sold the correct things – whats going on?

The species are no doubt very similar so I first turned to google. The International Plant Names Index (ipni.org) shows both as distinct species with no registered synonyms. Kew online also shows data for both as distinct species and indeed refers back to IPNI.

On pinguicula.org (http://www.pinguicula.org/pages/plantes/pinguicula_jaumavensis.htm) the jaumavensis flowers look a good match for what I have but they seem to be damn near the same on the esserina page (http://www.pinguicula.org/pages/plantes/pinguicula_esseriana.htm) as well.

The very excellent Mexican Pinguicula guide published by the AIPC (http://www.aipcnet.eu/Carnivorous_docs/AIPC_Special_Issue_3.pdf) shows two distinct species as well,  the flower pictures attached to each only show the most subtle differences.

Giving up on the internet, I turned to the book Pinguicula of Latin America by Andreas Fleischmann, Aymeric Roccia, Oliver Gluch, Paul Temple, Stan Lampard, and Stewart McPherson which says quite clearly that jaumavensis is a synonym of esserina.

Oliver Gluchs website goes in to a bit more detail (translated from the German); “In the plants that brought in the 1980s, the German botanist Paul Debbert from a collecting trip from Mexico and described in 1991 as a new species under the name P. jaumavensis , it is only a synonym of P. esseriana . The plants are also from the same mountain range as the type plants of P. esseriana , only about 20 km further north.”

So I’m left wondering which is it? Do I have an esserina masquerading as a jaumavensis, a jaumavensis pretending to be a esserina or should I just label all of them P.esserina…? Or even should the labels should read P.esserina and P.esserina var ‘jaumavensis’.  The evidence from pictures seems clear and agrees with a recent book from a number of well respected people, but does that then mean Kew is holding/showing incorrect data?  Either way – I love growing these charming little plants and digging into this has passed the time whilst suffering from a pretty horrible cold.

The first half of January doesn’t feel like the beginning of anything. It’s more a drizzly, twilit interruption;

I rather liked this quote from an article I read… rest of the article was pointless, but the quote summed up nicely how it feels at the moment. My orchids seem to be in stasis following the autumn and winter blooms. Only one lone Phalaenopsis is getting close and that seems to be taking its sweet time. My Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera) seems to be blooming again, but like the orchid is moving so slowly its almost imperceptible.  My guess is it knew I wanted to repot it and divide it and decided to be awkward!

Other orchids are growing well, including my Maxillaria tenuifolia which since late summer has grown a fair number of new pseudobulbs but nothing in spike.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even my Ludisia discolor has been and gone. Its nearly time for it to be repotted and trimmed, I’m trying to keep it low and bushy otherwise it gets leggy and unkempt – much like its owner!

 

 

 

 

 

In order to give myself something horticultural to do I turned to a new orchid species for me. Pleiones.  I acquired some bulbs of an unknown hybrid and after sticking them in the fridge for a few months decided it was high time they got potted up. The Ludisia, the cyclamen (seedlings, see below) I want to be potted in something ‘nice’ so I’d also acquired some terracotta bulb pans also idea for the shallow rooting Pleiones.

From all my reading online,  especially the excellent pleione.info I decided on a basic mix of orchid bark, some perlite and a little sphagnum moss. The mix is currently dry although there is a little moisture in the moss. I planted the bulbs so about half was covered then added a layer of bark as a top dressing to cover up the the tip. The two pans are currently in my highland tank as I don’t have a greenhouse, come the spring they’ll be going outdoors until the late summer when they go dormant again. I also have some smaller bulbis of a known species that I’ll pot up the same way shortly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bit of a rambling blog post this one, so hope anyone reading excuses my brain-dump. There is an exception to the ‘non blooming’ but that is the feature of a later blog post as well being related to the last one, so this hopefully serves to break things up a bit.