Ray's Thought for the Day

Here's something interesting that tails in with my revisin' of the RGVECB plant list which is roaring along at super sonic speed and will be completed, in so far as these type documents are ever completed, anon.

According to Scott Ogden in "Garden Bulbs of the South", 1994, a German immigrant to these parts, Comfort specifically, went into the bulb export-import business, in these parts, back in the 1850s, or thenabouts. He, the German immigrant, went by Peter Henry Oberwetter. Then the Civil War came along and Mr. Oberwetter had to hop it mighty quick to Mexico for political reasons, him being on the wrong side of the slavery subtopic in the Texas of those days. But he kept up with his business and when the dust settled in these parts, he moved to Austin where he persisted in the bulb export-import business.

One of the bulbs he imported from Argentina or Uruguay, maybe, was one that is now appellated as Rhodophilia bifida by some among the learned, but the less inclined to Latin call oxblood lilies or confederate lilies, maybe. We have a great many of these lilies at RGVECB that we inherited from the previous tenant of RGVECB and even though they are non-native, and in deference to their great beauty, historiosity, and the fact that they only increase by bulblets, and therefore are unlikely to get loose and make a nuisance of themeslves, we keep em' on and encourage them, a tad.

Up yonder somewhere to the north and west on this very page is some of 'em blooming next to some big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii).