Sinningia lineata
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Sinningia lineata

Sinningia lineata flowers
  1. Name (vs. S. macropoda)
  2. Photograph of whole plant
  3. Variations in S. lineata
  4. S. lineata in Brazil
  5. Timing from seed to bloom
  6. Feature table
  7. Publication and etymology

S. lineata flowers have spots at the entrance to the tube.  The name of the species comes from the dark streaks on the stems, petioles, and flowerstalks, as can be seen in a picture of a flowerstalk.




Naming

At the time of the 1988 Sinningia Register, there was a lot of confusion between this species and S. macropoda.  The Register considered S. lineata to be a synonym of S. macropoda, but in the 1990s it was determined that in fact the names represented distinct species.

The Plant

Sinningia lineata plant


I started S. macropoda seed from the AGGS Seed Fund around 1976, but the plant I got was S. lineata.  The picture above shows the plant in 2003.

There is also a picture of its tuber.

This plant is one of the parents of Sinningia 'Peninsula Belle'.


More spots

Sinningia lineata

Jon Dixon got seed from the AGGS seed fund a number of years ago under the name "highly spotted clone".  He got a number of lineata-like plants, with a variety of spotting in the flowers.  This picture shows the one with the most spotting.  The flower is almost peloric (see the discussion of floral symmetries), but the flowers hang downward instead of being upright like peloric versions of S. speciosa and S. cardinalis.




In Brazil

In 1999, the GRF expedition saw S. lineata growing in muddy ground beside a creek.  It was Brazil autumn, and the foliage (two pairs of leaves, as seen in the picture at the top) was very tattered.  Some of the tubers were already dormant.  They were easily the biggest tubers we saw in Brazil on that trip, up to 12 inches [30 cm] in diameter.

From Seed

S. lineata is one of those species which takes quite a while to reach maturity.  This means that if you sow seeds, you must be prepared to be patient in waiting for the first bloom.

In hybridization, however, this slowness can be negated by appropriate choice of mate.  S. 'Peninsula Belle' is S. lineata x reitzii.  When I selfed this hybrid, the resulting F2 plants took several years to bloom.  When I crossed S. 'Peninsula Belle' with S. conspicua, on the other hand, the hybrids bloomed about a year after germination.  Crosses with S. 'Texas Zebra' bloomed less than a year after germination.

It appears that the rapid maturity of (for example) S. conspicua and (in 'Texas Zebra') S. eumorpha trumps the slowness of S. lineata.

Time from seed may also have to do with culture.  S. piresiana has been another slow bloomer from seed for me, but two plants obtained from crossing it with S. 'Peninsula Belle' bloomed within 16 months.

Feature table for Sinningia lineata

Plant Description
Attribute Information
Growth Determinate
Habit 2-3 leaf pairs
Leaves Large, green
Dormancy Stems fully deciduous.  Dormancy is obligate.
Flowering
Attribute Information
Inflorescence terminal peduncle
Season Blooms in spring
Flower Orange-red, tubular
Horticultural Aspects
Attribute Information
From seed I no longer have records for the first bloom of my plant, seed sown 1977.  However, hybrids between this plant and others are very slow to bloom; see discussion
Hardiness Has survived 25F (-4C) in my yard
Recommended? Yes.  The tuber gets larger and larger and larger...
Botany
Attribute Information
Taxonomic group The lineata group of the Dircaea clade.
Nectaries Two, dorsal, joined or nearly so



Publication

Does anybody know why botanical citations insist on abbreviating people's names?  Anyway, Rechsteineria lineata was published by "Hjelm." in 1937.  The Plant-Book by Mabberley gives a "Hjelmq." as Karl Jesper Hakon Hjelmquist (b. 1905), which is in the right time range.  Chautems transferred this species to Sinningia in 1990.

Etymology: Latin lineata ("lined").