Comments for A Neotropical Savanna

Comment on Bamboo Orchid, Arundina graminifolia by John Bennetto

John Bennetto — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:13:12 +0000

Reply to Lance : I bought my plant from Bunnings in Cairns, North Queensland. They are a hardware chain if you don’t know them. My plant is flourishing in my semi-tropical climate and flowering regularly. Love it! John

Comment on Bamboo Orchid, Arundina graminifolia by Lance

Lance — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 05:51:14 +0000

To John from Brisbane, I’ve been trying to find any nursery in Australia that sells arundina with no success. Do you remember where in Cairns you got yours? My dad grows them beautifully in Los Angeles – they flower every year and grow really well in a giant clump on the side of the house – and I always wanted to try them in Sydney. Hey, I’m surprised to hear you call Brisbane temperate; I’d call it squarely subtropical and perfect for growing arundina. Thanks for a great post, Mary.

Comment on Bamboo Orchid, Arundina graminifolia by mary

mary — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:29:29 +0000

Graham,
Here in Panama the plant does require full sun. The area where we planted ours became more shaded as the years went by because of growth of the surrounding trees. The plant is still fine and blooms well, but the stems tend to lean over, searching for sun.

Dead-head, yes, but I think you’ll find that even after dead-heading, the stalk that produced the flower or flowers will die back. So rather than dead-head, I cut the entire stalk back to the ground. Always checking, of course, that there is new growth coming in. You may want to watch yours for similar behavior. Start out conservatively and simply dead-head. Then if the stem starts turning brown, just go ahead and cut it back.

Thanks for your comment, Graham. And good luck with this plant. It’s quite attractive.

Comment on Bamboo Orchid, Arundina graminifolia by Graham Pearce

Graham Pearce — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:15:17 +0000

Hi Mary,
Have just bought a potted bamboo orchid. It is about two feet high with four flowers and three buds – a total of about twenty stems. I was going to put it into a very large pot in the corner of the stoep (patio in Cape Town) but not sure if it will get enough sunlight. Should I dead head when the flowers fade ?
Graham.

Comment on Curcuma – The Resurrection Plant by mary

mary — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:12:22 +0000

Well, Dicky, nice to hear from you in this venue.

Yes, I have made a contribution or two to EOL. However tad-wig is new to me, and I thank you for the introduction. I’ll be delving more deeply there. One of my favorite resources is the Biodiversity Heritage Library and I wonder whether there’s some connection with TDWG there.

Also, for my purposes, TROPICOS from MoBot Gardens is a gem, and I also like ZipCodeZoo.

Thanks for showing up here!

Comment on Curcuma – The Resurrection Plant by Dicky

Dicky — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:43:50 +0000

Hey Mary,
Have you looked at the Encyclopedia of Life? They would love contributions from you and you could make a real impact. They collaborate with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and provide species distribution information to them. http://www.eol.org.

TDWG is another group you might find stimulating. Three of their main 5 sponsors are the Marine Biological Laboratory, the Smithsonian Institution and the Missouri Botanical Library (this last I may have the name wrong), interestingly enough to you. http://www.tdwg.org We call it ‘tad-wig’ and it’s about the marriage between IT people and taxonomists, with botanists being by far the biggest chunk of taxonomists. They are a standards group which may not be interesting but so much of the ‘in the trenches’ work of plant identification also creeps into the discussions.

Comment on Piptocoma discolor – A Tree in the Aster Family by rajsekhar pramanik

rajsekhar pramanik — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 03:12:32 +0000

very usefull data about piptocoma discolor

Comment on New Tree Book and Field Guide for Panama by mary

mary — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 21:33:17 +0000

Sondra -

That’s wonderful! It’s great to have another tree-lover in our midst.

Mary

Comment on New Tree Book and Field Guide for Panama by Sondra

Sondra — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 21:07:27 +0000

Thanks for this info. I live in Panama too and want to start a blog about our trees. Since I am not very knowledgeable on this subject, I need some extra resources to help me. This book with be great. And I will be stopping by again!

Comment on Nance Macho, Accidentally by mary

mary — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:03:46 +0000

Hello Jose,

You certainly may send photos. I’d be very interested to see your tree. I’m sending you a private email message to which you may respond with photos, if you so choose.

Thanks for your interest.

Mary