Dichelostemma

Dichelostemma ida-maia

Several tall, slightly twining stems are made from each small corm (once established) and these stems are crowned with a loose cluster of elongated hanging tubular bells.

Each pendant 3cm bloom is a brilliant, vivid, shiny scarlet with a reflexed collar around the green mouth which itself surrounds cream anthers.

In the wild this is hummingbird pollinated which must complete its status as one of the miracles of the bulb world.

Sharply drained, load-based soil in a sunny position,preferably with something close that the tall, thin stems can gain a little support from, to get their best display. Dry in summer from flowering time on and will tolerate dryness as late as December.

Dichelostemma ida-maiadicidaida	£0.60		1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
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Dichelostemma ida-maia (10)dicidaten	£5.00		1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Price is per 10 bulbs.

Dichelostemma multiflorum

(parviflora)

Roundtooth Ookow. A readily grown but little seen member of an under-rated genus, giving its best in a pot under frost-free cultivation, but fine outside in a well drained loam soil. This makes good sized, blue-violet flower balls in midsummer.

Being botanical for a moment, this is sometimes recorded as being like D.pulchellum. In fact the two are so very different that they should never be confused.

In multiflorum the tube is markedly constricted, so that part of it looks like an ovary behind the flower. The colour is always a paler, softer shade of violet with less blue and with far narrower petals, 2-3mm at their widest and all six are similar in size and appearance.

There are only three fertile anthers, the other three are white and sterile, rolled around themselves like tubes. This flowers in a heavy ball with many more flowers in each than in pulchellum, typically with 30-40 flowers per umbel, 6-15 in pulchellum).

The flowers of this species look much more like those of volubile ( whereas pulchellum looks much more like a Tritelia and would fit there by virtue of its 6 fertile anthers).

Dichelostemma multiflorumdicmulmul	£2.50		1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
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Dichelostemma volubile

This has walnut-sized heads of candy-pink, heavy-textured flowers each on a climbing stem that can reach up to 1m depending on support. It then dies away totally after flowering.

A very unusual and attractive plant and one of the very few climbing bulbs! Ideal if planted where it can scramble through a small shrub or bush, but in a very well-drained site if you are putting it outside. California.

Dichelostemma volubiledicvolvol	£3.00		1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Large view