Sinningia sulcata

1. The Dixon plant
2. The Denham plant
3. Feature table
4. Publication and etymology

This species is rare.  It was only one of three published sinningia species for which Perret et al. could not find suitable plant material (the other two being S. helleri, which was (incorrectly) thought to be extinct, and S. schomburgkiana, which I had never heard of at the time).

The Dixon Plant

Jon Dixon is the only one I know who has this plant.  This is a flower on his plant in May 2007.

The picture is over-exposed, so the yellow in the flower is washed out, but I'm not good enough to photoshop it back to reality.  You're going to have to use your imagination.

Jon says he lost this plant and I should stop asking about it.  Oops.  So if you have it, you're a member of an exclusive club.  Keep it alive!

This species bears some resemblance to Sinningia sellovii.  The flowers hang vertically, and the stamens are exserted.  The flowers are about as long, but those of Sinningia sulcata are wider.

The branching pattern is also very like that of S. sellovii.  First the main stalk blooms on the extended axis.  Then secondary shoots emerge from the main stem, in leaf axils about halfway up its length, and these too bloom as an extended axis.

From the pictures, it appears that there is another resemblance to S. sellovii. The flowers appear to be resupinate.  Note that the flowers appear to be flipped, with the pedicel attached to the flower from above.  The flower directly in front in the picture on the left appears to have the two "top" corolla lobes on the lower side of the corolla.

I can't give you a description of the leaves, because Jon's plant pretty much didn't have any.  You can see a couple of small leaves about halfway up the picture, and a couple of bract-like leaves at the top.  And that was about it.  Jon said it would leaf out after it was through blooming.

These pictures were sent to me by Miriam Denham, showing a plant she and her late husband Dale received from Bolivia many years ago.  The picture at the left shows the plant out of flower, with a very hairy stem and hairy leaves.

Hybridization

I did use the pollen from Jon Dixon's plant to do one cross in 2007, applying the pollen to a sinningia which was in bloom at the time.  See the S. amambayensis page for more details.  This plant is still alive [December 2022] and lives outdoors.

See the Corytholoma clade crossing chart for more information on the hybrids of S. sulcata.