Species conservation project

[Laci]

Gabi,
maybe you could try to give away some leaves or babies for you local botanical garden if they don't have it.
I think my difficilis is also from you

[Gabi_Munich]

Some weeks ago I went to the Munich Botanical garden for the first time ... after living here for 10 years They had nice plant houses but I did not find African violets But I was there with a friend so did not have the possibily to check every corner. Next time I'll go by myself and then do some research (do they have AV, do they have a showroom...)

[Laci]

Gabi, just asked them about it I don't know when I have time to go to our Botanical garden, but I have a suprise for them.

[illustrator]

My current list:

brevipilosa
difficilis
grandifolia (unspecified which clone)
grotei Mather # 21
grotei Protzen
intermedia
ionantha House of Amani
magungensis (unspecified which clone)
nitida
pendula var. pendula
rupicola
shumensis
velutina (unspecified which clone)

I had an "orbicularis", but this turned out to be a misidentified grotei. Because I wasn't sure which grotei clone it was, I stopped growing this one. Perhaps we can check if there are more of these "not-orbicularis" around so we can, if needed, correct our list? Laci, how does your orbicularis look?

I am thinking about making a table which all of us can edit. In this way we can all add and update our lists and have it in a single overview.

Gabi, can we make an exchange in spring? I note from your list that you use some older and some newer names "mixed", I assume that this is just "how you got the plants". What do you thing, should we discuss which version of the names we use? I used very outdated and abbreviated names here above, but in my own administration I try to use the most scientifically correct ones, which are longer and more clumsy. Please tell me what is the difference between your "S. intermedia" and your "pendula intermedia"? Did I mix up something?

And to the others: I am always happy to send leaves, but sometimes I am a bit slow (Diana knows ). I think that it is very important that more people grow the same plants, so if someone loses one or more, not all is lost I restart my plants from leaves from time to time, which means that I don't always have leaves of all to share ....

[Lola]

In my collection I keep
Saintpaulia velutina
Saintpaulia difficilis
Saintpaulia rupicola
Saintpaulia intermedia
Saintpaulia orbicularis
All plants from Stockholm.

[Gabi_Munich]

If anyone is interested - here is my current list

difficilis
House of Amani
grotei silvert
pendula intermedia
grotei cl Protzen

unfortunately I have lost some of the species I had.

[illustrator]

current list:

brevipilosa
confusa
difficilis
diplotricha
grandifolia # 299
grotei Mather # 21
grotei Protzen
intermedia
ionantha House of Amani
magungensis (small plant, likely var. minima)
nitida
pendula var. pendula (with one flower on each peduncle)
pendula var. pendula (with two flowers on each peduncle)
rupicola (regular variety)
rupicola Robertson
shumensis
velutina (to me it is not clear if the plant we have in the EU is "light/lite" because that one is described as a double on some websites! I grow the small one with pale flowers)

I had to restart some plants from leaves after the winter, but I didn't loose any. I gave some leaves to our Hungarian friends some days ago, I would let my plants grow a bit but in 2-3 months I should have leaves from most if anyone wants.

Of the first ten I have # 32 and just some days ago I got a plug plant of Amethyst (Thanks Angelika!). The plant which circulates as "Neptune" is in fact Woodland Sprite, which is a very intreguing plant in itself: It looks very "wild" and it's offspring (from self-fertilizing) is extremely similar to the parent plant. So both in appearance and genetically it is very close to the species, however, it is listed as a cultivar everywhere. I still have Woodland Sprite and also some leaves of a seedling of this plant, which I intend to grow to flowering. This is the only seedling that did not flower yet and it is slightly darker than the others. I almost lost it this winter ...

Of Primulina species I have:

longangensis
linearifolia (made it through some very difficult times, still very small)
tamiana

[illustrator]

After a loooong delay I have started to make an excel-file with who-has-what. My idea is very simple, just a table with plants and growers. I start with the information which is online and with writing to some growers with whom I exchanged plants in the past. In some weeks I can send all "participants" a copy of the table. I hope that this will help us to:

- find out which wild violets are grown in private collections in Europe

- see which plants are rare (grown by few people) and which are more commonly grown

- plan exchanges between each other

The ultimate goal is nothing more than that we keep growing these special plants, all of which are endangered in nature. Everyone can join, it doesn't matter if you have just one recently set leaf or a big collection. What matters is only enthousiasm! For the moment I want to include only wild (species) violets and the cultivar "Woodland Sprite", because it is very "wild-like" and I am not certain if it is not acctually a wild violet!" If we are one day absolutely sure it is a cultivar we can drop it from the list.

Best regards,
Paul