Hi everybody,

about 2 months ago several of my D. graminifolia have been in flower.
I´m growing 2 location forms, the form from ´Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brazil´ has flowered last year for the first time. Since than it has not raised in size, all new leafes have the same lenght, so it seems to be adult. The leafes are more greenish coloured and are about 13 cm in lenght.
This year the form from ´Itacambira, Minas Gerais, Brazil´ has flowered for the first time, the flowers are more colourful and the leafes are more reddish. These plants are much bigger (about 20 cm long leafes till now).

Most of the flowers are not selfing automatically, if they are pollinated by hand it works much better, but for my sadness i´ve not pollinated all of them, only a few (because i´ve not been all the time in Germany); and of course i´ve tried to cross it with D. camporupestris.

D. graminifolia "giant" ´Itacambira, Minas Gerais, Brazil´











D. graminifolia “spiralis“ ´Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brazil´






both forms next to each other


and here the plants normally are growing




both forms next to each other (here the difference in the colour of the leafes between both forms is not really visible because of the lights



And here are a few pictures of D. brevifolia ´Hamstead, NC, USA´, it has flowered about 5 months ago.






Best regards,

Dani

Beautiful plants Dani! Good luck with the hybridization!

Beautiful plants, as usual

Excellent photography and cultivation!

Wow, beautiful pictures!! The level of detail shown in the flowers may even aid me in sometaxonomic questions regarding these 2 forms of D.graminifolia in the future.

Interesting to hear that the Diamantina form grows larger for you, since in nature it is the opposite. The form native to Itacambira, Botumirim and Grão Mogol are the largest, most robust, with multiply branched flower scapes. The leaves may reach up to 35cm in length and the flower scapes up to 50cm. I've also seen them forming stems up to 15cm in length.

Can't wait to see the result of your hybrid! :)

All the Best,
Fernando Rivadavia

very beautiful plants !!

Many thanks everybody.

Fernando, a few minutes ago i´ve checked when i´ve received these 2 forms and now i´m very sure that i´ve made a mistake regarding the locations.
About 3 years ago i received the form from Itacambira as D. graminifolia “giant“ ´Itacambira, Minas Gerais, Brazil´. At the beginning the plants have been really very slow growers, that was the reason why i thought that this form cannot be the "giant" form. But the plants have started to get much bigger during the last 12 months.
The form from Diamantina i´ve received about 5-6 months earlier and the plants have been very fast growers and have been relatively quickly adult, so i thought that this must be the "giant" form.

That was the reason why i´ve changed the locations at the beginning and after changing them i´ve totally forgotten it, sorry, really a big mistake.

BTW, in the moment both location forms are forming multiply branched (two) flower scapes (but not all of them) and both of them are forming stems, but the Itacambira stems are bigger and these plants are much more robust.

About the crossing with D. camporupestris, i really hope that it has worked. I´ve also tried the reciprocal crossing.

Best regards,

Dani

Hey Dani,

So are you saying that we should switch the names above? That the pics of D.graminifolia Diamantina are actually from Itacambira, while those from Itacambira are actually from Diamantina??

Thanks,
Fernando

Hi Dani,

You have a fantastic collection, your D. graminifolia
are more beautiful and healthful than mine.
I have only three leves in each plant.

Thanks for sharing.

Carlos.

Really nice plants Daniel
Just a taxonomic question for Fernando and whom may know: what are the differences between the "spiralis", "nortensis" and type variation?

Regards

Aymeric

Many thanks Aymeric and Carlos.

Carlos, my younger plants have only 3 active leafes too. But when they are getting bigger in size they are developing much more leafes.
So perhaps you´ll have to wait a little bit.
How old are your plants and what is the lenght of their leafes and which form are you growing?

Aymeric, i don´t have an answer to your question but i also would like to know the differences.

Ferando, yes, i´ve changed the 2 locations above.
Last time when i´ve shown pictures of the smaller form that has flowered last February for the first time in my collection i don´t have made this mistake (there it has been labelled as D. graminifolia var. spiralis ´Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brazil´. This year the bigger form has flowered for the first time, so it´s the form from Itacambira.
Look here (in this pot are also growing D. natalensis and D. spatulata like in the picture of the small form shown above, it´s the same pot, but the picture is taken from the other side ):
http://www.cpukforum.com/forum/index.php?s...hl=graminifolia

And i´ve the same question, i´ve received the smaller form as var. spiralis and the other form only with the addition "giant". Are these plants different variations? What are the differences between the variations, is it the size of the plants, the form of the emerging leafes, the flowers,.....?

Best regards,

Dani

Hi guys,

What we call informally as "spiralis" represents the plants from the Diamantina area in central Minas Gerais and which were originally published as D.spiralis by Saint-Hilaire. Whereas what we call informally as "giant" or "nortensis" grows around the towns of Itacambira, Botumirim and Grão Mogol in N M.Gerais. It is morphologically more similar to D.spiralis than to type D.graminifolia, but is usually much bigger and has several other differences as well... but I won't go into these since we are working on publishing a paper about all this. :)


Take care,
Fernando

Thank you Fernando for those precisions. So I'm looking foward for your future publication

Regards

Aymeric

Hi Fernando,

many thanks for your explanation; now a few things are getting more clearly.
I'm also looking foward for your future publication.

Best regards,

Dani

Stunning pictures of impressive results!

Congrat's

Many thanks, Vince.
Later or tomorrow i´ll contact you because of the plants you want to have.

Best regards,

Dani

Hi Dani,

My old plant (var. spiralis) I sowed in 2009, came from 'Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brasil'.
I have too a new plant from 'Botumirim, Minas Gerais, Brasil' and seedlings from 'Serra do Barão (1.000mts), Grão Mogol, Minas Gerais, Brasil'.

Regards.

Hello Daniel,


Your plants look realy nice! I love the photo with the D.graomogolensis in the background

Do you grow your plants under T8 fluorescent tubes?

Best regards,

Anderson

As always, amazing plants!
I'm assuming you have very cool temperatures? What is your nighttime drop? All of your south american dews just seem to love whatever they're getting...

Thanks again.

Carlos, so your plants are still very young. When they are getting bigger they will also have more active leafes.

Anderson, the D. graomogolensis are in flower too at the moment. These days i´ll show some pictures.
And yes, i´m still using the old T8 tubes (840 and 865).

Aaron, in the moment the temperatures at night are about 10-12 degree, daytime about 18-20.

Best regards,

Dani