Dear Wallaby,
it is obvious my memory was betraying me. You were right, the leaves have no spots and the flowers start with a pale pink that intensifies as they mature.
This picture shows a new flower at the left and a more mature (but not fully mature) on the right. They are so beautiful!!!!!
Can you please identify them now?
Two days later
This is a third flower, just opening.
Thanks in advance.
Hugs,
Ursula
Arrgh! just spotted myself being called for!
So pretty! They look great, unbelievably pink....I will have to hunt up the original thread to see what I said then...back later...
I can't find the original thread, there was a good link with descriptions of the leaves (and I just lost all of my posting now!)
Found the link!
http://www.pacificcallas.com/CallalilyNeonAmourbulbs.htm
http://callalilyshop.pacificcallas.com/allvarieties.htm
I think Neon Amour comes closest, there are other pinks but this one has the wavy edge spathes and pale throat, unspotted leaves which seem to be fairly broad. the description is a hot pink, most of the stock photos are over enhanced.
http://www.langeveld.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=plants.plantDetail&plant_id=166
Dear Wallaby,
thanks for your input and links.
I agree they seem to be Neon Amour.
This is how the flowers of the first picture look today (the bigger one seems to be close to wilting)
The pale yellow throat and tip have now turned into green, as you can see in this picture:
Ooooops, here's the picture
Look what a surprise the bigger flowered Calla had for me:
Hi Ursula,
The large flower looks to be keeping it's colour, the description from Langeveld states it fades to a bright colour. True to form, some lose their colour once they start to seed. I have a bright red one that has held it's colour, amazing plants!
It certainly is a neon colour, you were lucky to get that one!
This is how the flower of the third picture (the one that looks like being split in two colours) above looks today:
This Calla is in a separate pot (alone, poor baby LOL) and still has the yellowish throat.
All pictures posted today were taken just minutes ago.
Beautiful shape! It looks to be flowering well, some don't produce many spathes.
It has just dawned on me that your season is opposite to ours! Now we can enjoy your pics while winter is here.
Hi Wallaby!
Are you saying my babies will produce viable seeds? Will they come true to to the mother/father plants or will they revert to their parental plants?
If my memory does not betray me this time LOL, originally I got 5 tiny little baby-tubers from the USA maybe in 2003. Only one of them bloomed last year (the only one). The odd thing is that just this one is far behind the others this year. During their tuber maturing period, they multiplied and I have already given away 3 tubers (2 of which have been reported to be blooming).
I need a big garden to plant everything I grow and everything I still can produce!!!!!
Hugs,
Ursula
Yes, our seasons are opposite, which is what keeps me alive during our winter: still being able to come to DG and see so many beautiful pictures and learn so much from other Gardener's experience!
Some will produce viable seeds, others don't seem to make any or if they do they are not proper seeds such as Cameo made this year, they looked like green peas and have now rotted. Good seed has a small hard round seed inside a fleshy coating.
I had a few last year from my red which I think is Majestic Red, it was late making seeds but I got 2 to grow, one looks strong. They won't come true from seed as they are hybrids, it will be a surprise what they turn out like although I haven't as yet grown any to maturity. Some could resemble the parents used in the breeding, some may look like the plant itself, they could be totally different!
The straight species such as Z. albomaculata should come true and they make good seeds, but there is no guarantees they won't have crossed with others if in flower at the same time.
I found they can take up to 3 years to flower from new young tubers, Cameo has multiplied well now but it was a lone survivor from the original plant which rotted along with 3 other new bulbs, it was a very cold winter.
This is the red with it's seeds, still there and maturing,
WOW: that is a fat pregnant Calla! LOL. Beautiful colour.
Last year I collected seeds from my Zantedeschia aethiopica Green Godess. Could they cross-polinate if they were on the same balcony? The pink Callas are on my East facing balcony and the Green Godess is on the West facing balcony.
Do you have a Calla collection?
Ursula
They may have crossed, I really don't know how easily an aethiopica will cross with a rehmanii hybrid. Green Goddess I think is a hybrid itself, as is Pink Mist which I have. Its Zantedeschia x aethiopica Pink Mist. What it's crossed with I don't know.
Bees would carry the pollen from one to the next, if they are compatible and if they were flowering at the correct time it is a possibility.
I also have Z.albomaculata, this year I had Gem Lavender, Crystal Blush and one which should have been Black Forest but wasn't, it was stunted whatever it was. I have 2 growing from seed of Z jucunda which has gold flowers to 6" and heavily spotted arrow leaves, a species. it will take some time to mature.
We are lacking many varieties here, I am envious of all the lovely varieties I see available in America! The collection is nevertheless growing with more possibilities on the horizon...I have on order a new one called Red Desire, an aethiopica cross with the typical spathe but it has a red spadix with a red flush in the throat.
Hi Ursula and wallaby - your Callas are beautiful. Ursula yours is such a bright pink color - really pretty :-)
Hi rannveig, do you see Calls in Iceland? I think the season wouldn't be long enough, but in a greenhouse perhaps they would grow.
Thanks, Rannveig.
Wallaby, I think you opened a new world (Calla World) for me. LOL.
Ursula
I hope that's good! I seem to have a habit of opening lots of new doors...
stick with it and you will have some lovely lush plants in no time, they get a lot bigger when established but will need to be potted on.
This is the red one when it first opened, it started more burgundy and matured to a deep red. Behind it is Cameo which has also grown large, it had 3 flowers on but the foliage on both is large, spotty and lush.
Wallaby, I think I just acquired a new addiction! If I lived on the top of the building, I would remove the roof and ceiling of one bedroom just to creat a Calla Patio LOL.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Hugs,
Ursula
Hi Ursula ,
when I saw you pic I thought that looks like Chianti but when I went into our website to check it out I found Chinati doesn't have spotted leaves. If you and Wallaby would like to check a photo of our one and see the others we grow just go to www.calla.net.nz
We used to grow both flowers and tubers but now just grow tubers. It is just a mum and dad operation now and I don't have to work during our summer although my husband still goes out to the land we lease to maintain the crop until it is ready for harvesting when I will be back on duty again.
I have just planted tubers in our home garden. treasure, cameo, pot of gold,majestic red, and one Schwartwalder ( is that your black forest, Wallaby)
and butterscotch.
Chianti has slightly spotted leaves according to Pacific Callas, Ursulas are plain
http://www.pacificcallas.com/GrowerCallalilyChiantibulbs.htm
it also looks to be coloured all the way down the tube not paler at the base.
Yes Schwarzalder is the same as Black Forest, both names are used. Would you say my red looks like Majestic Red? I bought it as a finished flowering pot plant reduced, no name. It does seem to fit it and no other, the colour changes as it matures but goes even more red.
ferrymead, that is deliberate cruelty!!!! LOL.
You are right, your Chianti and my Neon Amour have very similar colours but the leaves are different.
You grow very beautiful Callas!
Hugs,
Ursula
Wallaby, MDH has definely identified it as Majestic Red. He said the colour intensifies when the style of the pistil has a heavy pollen break ( he is the expert!), this happens as the spathe matures, it eventually goes a very deep shade.
Well, our Chianti has very sp[otted leaves, the flowers from Pacific Callas look the same but perhaps there have been changes thru the generations.
We trialled growing Black forest with 100 tubers but they did not perform too well in our district so we just sold the tubers back to the exporter. But their flowers do look very dramatic and I hope I manage to keep my solitary one growing well in its pot.
Ursula, thanks for the hug, very much appreciated. Callas are so beautiful and I am sure you will get so much pleasure from yours. When we grew thousands and thousands of stems they were just sork, work , work and I never had one stem in a vase in our house. However, I will really enjoy them now we are not involved in growing the flower stems commercially.
ferrymead, thank you and to your husband for giving a positve ID on that. I hate having plants that don't have a name even if they are pretty, it niggles! I like to know the reasons for it's colour change too, and it looks to have had a heavy pollen break!
I also hate it when I buy a named plant and it turns out to be totally different. I bought a Schwartzwalder about 3 years ago from J Parkers, it was expensive, £7.99 I believe. It failed to grow, it didn't even go rotten, it had the texture of dried cork almost but I was by that point so fed up with getting bad or wrong bulbs from them I just didn't bother to contact them. I also bought 3 Zantedexchia albomaculata, luckily one of those grew.
This year i was pleased to see it named as Black Forest at the supermarket for £2.49, more than some but I decided to give it another try. The bulb had an extra corm which came off easily so I potted it separately. They both grew, one had a very thin leaf with a not Black Forest spathe and was stunted. but interesting! The other had a smallish arrow shaped leaf with spots, just one.
This is the spathe, if it grows next year I think I will like it but I still want the black one! You can see another funny spathe coming at the bottom, it was a leaf spathe but had a small spadix, confused..
That $7,95 tuber sounds as if it had calcified, how annoying for you.
Your supermarket one was a good price and neat that you scored a 'break off' tuber. but I am a bit worried to hear about the thin leaves which appeared. That sounds like it could have boot strap virus (don't know it's Latin name!).
My husband is very vigilant and walks the crop every two days after the leaves appear to make sure there is no problem with any plant. His motto is ' preventiion is better than cure '.
As we send all the tubers off to our exporters they must be virus free. The tuber crop is inspected twice a year, once by the N.Z. Horticulturel and Agriculture inspector who issues an export clearance and then the two exporters agents also do inspections.
Interesting photo, some Callas do odd things, when we used to produce stems for sale, we used to get Saimese and triplet spathes on one flower stem, these were much prized by florists and wee used to send these to the local market and called them 'exotics'. Lol.
