On 25/4/08 21:47, in article , "Nick
Maclaren" wrote:


In article ,
Sacha writes:
|
| It's stunning, Nick. Did you not bring a few bits home with you?! Tsk!
In
| a way it reminds me of an Eryngium that we saw growing in the Trodos
| mountains of Cyprus. The blue was so intense that they looked just as if
| they'd been spray-painted. I have never before, or since, seen anything
| like them.

I am not good with cuttings, but I did spend some time looking for
seed-pods. No joy, unfortunately. The ones in the Sierra Nevada
weren't as intense a blue as the picture, but were still a good
blue. The plants are sufficiently distinctive that an autumn
visitor should be able to collect seeds - it looks as if the
Portugese variant may have the best colour.

There was also a Cistus that I failed to find any full seed pods
of, but it wasn't all that exciting. Nice, but just another Cistus
with small white flowers.

I got some seeds from two street trees in Granada, which I can't
offhand identify. I will chase up a bit and try to grow them.


We find that foreign travel seems to fall into two categories; there is the
frustration of finding unidentified seed pods and there is the mither of
seeing beautiful but unknown flowering shrubs and trees with no seed pods.
Perhaps we should organise an urg sortie that involves one lots going out
when everything is in bloom and the next lot going out when it's seeding!


--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'