>>At the moment, I'm waiting to catch my D. callistos in full bloom. I
>>missed the first two flowers but the third is due to open in the next
>>couple of days if the weather stays fine... Luckily a second scape
>>has appeared, so I'm in with a chance!
>
>
>Thanks John, The one species I have was labelled D. callistos when I
>got them. Do yours have salmon colored flowers, and what sort of
>conditions, swampy or well-drained, do they prefer? The problem is
>some want to go dormant and the ones in another pot do not. They have
>flowered already, but have not produced gemmae in over a year. I'm
>also confused as to whether they go dormant during the summer in the
>southern or northern hemisphere.
Well, my D. callistos is a bit of an oddball. I caught it in full bloom
yesterday (helped by my desk lamp when it turned overcast ;-) ) and I think
my plant is a hybrid between D. callistos and probably D. leucoblasta. It
features are somewhere between the two plants and it also had an extra petal
(6 in total), and *5* stigmas... (Maybe I should get a geigercounter - this
is the second weird flower in as many weeks! ;-) )
The flower colour is "metallic orange" with a darker maroon (almost, but not
quite, black) center - "star"-shaped. The petals are D.leucoblasta shape
(long, almost wedge-shaped, but the tips are somewhat rounded), size was
about 12 x 6 mm. However it had a black ovary as per D.callistos. The
leaf-blade is rounded = leucoblasta, but the stipule bud is not as tall =
callistos... Still, it is an impressive plant in bloom.
If you could give me more detail on the size of the flower, petal shape,
and maybe the leaf and stipule bud shape/size and growth habit then I'd
be better able to get an approximate ID for you. D. callistos is a dry
dormancy, sandy-soil grower, as are almost all of the orange-flowered
pygmaes (one or two growing in more clay soils, but all seem to need/tolerate
dry dormancy). The dormant period is in summer - the same holds for the
Northern Hemisphere, though it's 6 months out of sync, of course - when the
weather is hot and dry, with occasional thunderstorms.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| John Taylor [Catweasel] | Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology |
| rphjt@minyos.xx.rmit.edu.au | Melbourne, Victoria, AUSTRALIA |
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