I grew falconeri not very successfully for a year then it snuffed it.
I've had petiolaris `Kununurra' for about 1.5 yrs and have done very
well with it. It is my suspicion this plant does not like terraria
because the humidity may be too high? Or maybe it is prone to fungus?
In any event, it does very well in my greenhouse, full sun. Temps range
around 30-35 C in the summer. In the winter I let them chill a little
to maybe 10 C, but not lower. This sends them into dormancy where they
stay for about 3--4 months. Then they come back and flower. No one has
had luck getting seed yet, unless you cross pollinate. Following Allen
Lowrie's advice, I have mine in 50/50 peat-perlite. I have mine in a
deep pot (13 cm), about 2.5 cm in water. I don't know what I'm doing
right, but the plant is producing new growth crowns at its base. The
one in the terrarium I had died.
>equally remote, not from our own "backyard"! When was it discovered?
>What other plants are in this complex?
It's a recent discovery---about 5 years back I think. It was written up
in CPN then. That explains why it wasn't in Erickson. Allen Lowrie's
been doing a lot of field work on these plants. He's found several
interesting forms of petiolaris, which may or may not be some kind of
distinct taxa. From memory (which according to my wife, and despite my
claims to the contrary, is not infallible) there are
D. falconeri
D. lanata
D. dilatato-petiolaris
D. petiolaris
D. petiolaris "erect"
D. petiolaris "medium rosette"
D. petiolaris "mini rosette"
D. petiolaris "Kununurra"
>Also in Gardenworld was a CP book by Juniper, Robbins, and Joel (can't
>remember
Well, maybe not a LOT of wrong information. Just some errors that lowly
little ol' me could detect. I'm applying the tip-of-the-iceberg
principle. If I can catch *these* errors, how many others lie
undetected? Don Schnell reviewed the book and gave a very mixed review,
too.
>Why the ridiculous price-tag? Surely they can't expect to sell many
>(especially to poor CP enthusiasts).
>From the economics class I took in antedeluvian times, I think this is
called inelastic demand. Whatever the price, there will be a fixed number of
buyers. Mostly research and locations of higher learning. There's no
cultural info. My advice is to check it out from the library, and
photocopy the first couple of chapters since they contain some useful
information on habitats. There are a couple of other interesting
sections, so hit those with the copier. Copywrites be damned!