Differences and characteristics of boviai, rules for care, recommendations for reproduction and transplantation, problems arising during cultivation, interesting facts, species. The creations of nature are varied and unusual. How often do you have to repeat these words when faced with unusual representatives of the flora or fauna of the planet. One of these examples that amaze the human imagination is Bovieya (Bovieya), which is an interweaving of thin shoots and stems. What forms can be given to this green inhabitant of the earth. Let's take a closer look at the exotic miracle of nature.
Bowiea is a plant belonging to the Hyacinthaceae family, but in many literary sources it is referred to the Liliaceae family. The territories of southern Africa are considered to be their native habitat, it is found in Tanzania and Kenya, settled in the lands of Zimbabwe, Zambia and the Republic of Malawi, where desert climatic conditions prevail. The plant loves to settle among tall shrubs or under trees, along the banks of rivers, lakes and streams. But if you find it on pebbles or, on dry sandy surfaces, then you shouldn't be surprised either, bovie can also grow there. As soon as a cooler and wetter season begins in the desert, the plant enters the active growing phase, and when hot and dry time comes to replace it, it falls into a state of dormancy.
The plant got its name in honor of the traveler and botanist James Bowie (Bove), who lived approximately in 1789-1869. This name was given to a genus of similar flora representatives by the physician and naturalist William Henry Harvey (1811-1866), who decided to perpetuate the memory of a man who collects plants and describes them for the Royal Botanic Gardens, located in the outskirts of London - in the Kew area. Bowie's journey to the Cape of Good Hope (according to Harvey) has expanded the collection of succulents found in the gardens of Europe more than any other plant collector. Bovieya was first found in 1867 in peatlands, where there is always water and plenty of sunshine, at the same time it was described. People call it sea cucumber, climbing cucumber, climbing onion, and also Zulu potatoes (zulu potato).
Bovieya is a bulbous herbaceous rosette plant with a very branched flowering stem that forms a kind of curls. With the help of a peduncle, when using a support, florists create a variety of shapes. It has a large perennial bulb, colored in a light green shade, reaching a diameter of 30 cm and having a height of 10-15 cm. Most often it is completely above the ground surface and only sometimes half buried. The shape of the bulb is flattened from the top, and it is enveloped by dry scaly formations of last year. They serve to protect the bulb from external factors, but if you keep it away from direct sunlight and moisturize well, then the scales remain green and do not dry out. Usually, in a year, two juicy scales appear on the bulb, in which moisture is stored.
In total, the bulb contains up to 10 such scaly formations. Bovieya differs from many bulbous geophytes (plants in which shoots, buds or bulbs endure an unfavorable period immersed in the soil) in that it has thick root shoots with a long life cycle.
Long stems with creeping or drooping outlines originate from the bulb, which intertwine with each other. When a plant is very young, then it has leaves available, they are small enough, painted in light green tones and reaching 1 mm in length. They are rounded and juicy in shape. These leaf formations appear at the very beginning of growth, and subsequently they dry up, and a flowering stem appears, curling around the provided support.
Adult specimens do not have leaves, and their role is played by a multi-branched peduncle, which serves as an organ for the plant to capture solar energy. Its diameter reaches 5 mm, there is some flattening and the length of the peduncle can reach 3 meters. Since there are a lot of stems of the 2nd and 3rd order, the total surface area of the curly climbing peduncle is very extensive. Sometimes 2-3 peduncles appear during the season.
It usually begins to grow from the beginning of spring days and is covered with small narrow leaves. As soon as the dry and hot season comes, all the supra-luminal parts die off and the plant enters a dormant period. The bovie can be in it for six months, until heat and moisture awaken a new shoot to grow.
By the middle of the season, small flowers appear on the peduncle. Their diameter is only 8 mm, the color is greenish-whitish, and they are practically invisible against the background of a curly green peduncle. In its natural environment, the plant is pollinated by flies. If you break the shoot, then a translucent slimy substance appears in this place, which in appearance is very similar to the pulp of an overripe cucumber (hence the popular name of the plant).
Basically, it is customary to grow bovia as an ampelous crop, because of its highly branched peduncle. But you will need to install supports or decorative ladders, trellises in the pot to help support the stem, the length of which exceeds meter indicators. If you grow a "curly cucumber" in warm room conditions, then it does not lose its decorative effect throughout the year.
Agricultural technology in the cultivation of bovie, care
- Lighting. "Curly cucumber" loves a lot of light and will feel great on a window in the south, south-east or south-west direction. But in the midday hours on the south side, shading will be required from aggressive sunlight. It is necessary to protect the bulb from bright sunlight, as this will negatively affect the sequence of the periods of life (rest and active growth) of the beauvie. With a lack of light, there is no flowering.
- Content temperature. In the spring-summer period, to grow a "climbing cucumber", it is necessary to maintain heat indicators in the range of 20-30 degrees, and with the arrival of autumn and for the entire period of winter, temperatures are lowered to the limits of 10-15 degrees. The main condition is that there are no sharp drops in the thermometer indicators, which can lead to a stop in the growth of the bovie.
- Air humidity. The plant perfectly tolerates the dry air of residential premises, however, in the summer, in extreme heat, it is necessary to spray with bovie 1-2 times a week.
- Watering during the growing season, they are plentiful and regular, as soon as the soil in the pot dries out. During the winter months, you will need to keep the plant dry as it is dormant. Waterlogging is very harmful, otherwise it will lead to rotting of the bulb. Water is taken soft, without lime impurities, at room temperature.
- Fertilizer apply only once a month when the plant is in the growing season. You can use succulent plant food. At the beginning of the activation of growth, nitrogen should be added to build up green mass, and then phosphate-potassium, for flowering.
- Bovieya transplant. When the young bulbs cease to fit in the pot, then it is necessary to transplant the plant. This usually happens every 2 years and it is better to choose the time during the summer dormancy of bovie. The new pot should not be deep, and the diameter should only be slightly larger than the mother bulb itself. When the plant is transplanted, coarse river sand or fine gravel is poured onto the soil surface - this will prevent the bulb from rotting. The transplant soil should be loose, with excellent air permeability. You can use a succulent substrate with the addition of river sand in a 1: 1 ratio.
Recommendations for breeding boviei at home
You can get a new plant "climbing cucumber" by sowing seeds, baby bulbs or bulbous scales.
When using seeds, the bovieya grows very slowly. Seed material is sown in late January - early February. But if there is a mini-greenhouse in which the soil is heated from below and there is always sufficient lighting, then sowing can be done at any time of the year. The seeds are placed in a container filled with moistened sand or a sand-peat mixture. Before sowing the seeds, you need to soak them in a weak solution of potassium permanganate for 5-10 minutes. They can only be powdered with a little sand or not embedded in the soil at all, only by pressing the seeds a little into the substrate. The germination temperature is maintained within 21-22 degrees. Glass is placed on the container with seeds or the container is covered with plastic wrap. This will require daily airing and spraying of the soil. Bovieya sprouts as one shoot, at the end of which a seed may remain. It is not worth removing it, as the seedling may die if not all the nutrients have been taken from the seed.
As the "curly cucumber" grows, then its bulb begins to divide, this process is similar to its cracking. Daughter bulbs (“babies”) are formed under the upper covering scales in their sinuses. They grow non-stop and gradually increase in size. As soon as the size of the daughter bulb reaches 10 cm in diameter, it will need to be carefully separated from the mother bulb and stored in a dark and cool place until planting. To plant a plant, soil is taken that is suitable for an adult bovier.
When propagated with the help of bulb scales, they are taken from old plants. In this action, you should be extremely careful not to damage other scales. The separation is carried out from the very top to the bottom of the scale, but the break should not be performed until the point of contact with the core of the bulb (that is, not until the very end). Then each flake is cut into strips 2, 5-3 cm wide. The pieces are dried for 1-2 days in a plastic bag or immediately planted in moist soil. But in both cases, good ventilation is required to prevent decay. After about a month, fully formed small onions will appear along the lower edge of the particle. When another couple of months have passed, these bulbs will take root and become independent bovies. The number of new bulbous formations directly depends on the size of the particle and how juicy it is.
Diseases and pests of boviei
The problems that arise when caring for a "curly cucumber" are associated with violation of the rules for keeping the plant, among them the following can be distinguished:
- If the substrate has been waterlogged for a long time, then, as a result, the bulbs can rot, in order to avoid this, when planting, they should be immersed in only a third of the soil.
- So that the creeping and crawling stems develop normally and do not get tangled in a ball-like heap, then special supports or trellises are installed for the plant.
- In case of moisture drops on the bulb, the shells located on its upper part may start to rot, so that this does not happen, bottom watering should be carried out. Often this process is invisible to an inexperienced grower, and when clear signs of damage appear, the plant can no longer be saved.
Due to the strong toxic properties of bovie, pests do not infect this exotic green bush.
Interesting facts about boviei
Attention!!! All parts of borvia are highly poisonous and therefore gloves will have to be used when caring for it. If this is not done, local severe irritation may occur when the cover of the bulb comes into contact with wet skin of the hands. Glycosides are isolated from the active substances, which have a strong effect on the state of the cardiovascular system. "Curly cucumber" is extremely toxic, symptoms of poisoning are nausea, diarrhea and pain in the abdomen, the pulse slows down. But everything is not so bad with this overseas beauty - it is curious that in the Zulu tribes in the tradition of treating headaches, it is just bovieya that is used. Therefore, due to the widespread collection of this plant in natural conditions, it becomes extremely rare.
Bovieya species
- Curly bowiea (Bowiea volubilis Harvey ex Hook.f.). If you translate the name from Latin, then "volubilis" means curly and this word "volvere" happened in translation meaning - to whirl. In the literature, it is often found under the synonym name Schizobasopsis volubilis. The native area of growth falls on the territory of South Africa, and this species can be found in the southern regions of South-West Africa, reaching the lands of Kenya. Likes to settle among shrub thickets or trees, along the banks of waterways, but survives in dry areas, can successfully grow on pebbles. The bulb is rounded, large in size, reaching 15–20 cm in diameter. It is often located on the surface of the soil and, if sunlight hits it, it becomes green. Sheet plates are not durable, they have tiny parameters (only 1 mm). They appear when the plant is just starting to grow. The stems are thin, spiral-shaped, these leaves completely cover them and then fall off. Climbing stem, characterized by branching, leafless and painted in green color. It usually works as an assimilating organ. The flowering stem can extend to a height of several meters. The buds are attached to long pedicels, the color of their petals is whitish, the size of the flower is small. Vegetation occurs in the summer.
- Bowiea kilimandscharica Mildbr. The homeland can be considered the surrounding Kenyan lands near Mount Kilimanjaro. Likes to settle in the shade of large stones, often grows under bushes. Its thickets are quite numerous. With the growth of a flowering stem, if there is a support nearby (the same large boulders), then it will lean on them. It was singled out as a separate species as an endemic plant that is distributed only in one place on the planet. Unlike the previous variety, this variety has a smaller bulb and, at an early age, the plant forms a large cluster of such small bulbs. Its stems and leaves are thinner with graceful shapes. The flowers are cast yellow. The fruit is larger in size than that of the climbing variety.
- Bowiea gariepensis. It is a plant with a larger size than climbing beauvia. The flower bud reaches 12–18 mm across. The wire-like flowering stem is thick and sturdy, usually coiled and highly branched. In adult specimens, the bulb has a brownish tone and has a papery integument. When the plant reaches one year of age, the seedlings have a diameter of up to 18 mm. This variety is winter-growing, in contrast to the climbing variety, and it is natural that the plant rests in the summer. Many botanists consider it to be a subspecies of curly bovia.
- Small bowiea (Bowiea nana) it is compact in size and has stems that resemble lashes of thick and juicy forms. It is also referred to as a subspecies of the climbing variety.
How the beovie grows, see this video:
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