On the 26th of April 2003 we
visited the Kuh-e Bamu National Park just east of
the city of Shiraz. This should be the 'home'mountain of Dionysia
michauxii, one
of the most beautiful and compact species of dionysia. Pictures taken by
Jim Archibald in 1966 revealed the beauty of this species. He also
introduced
this species into cultivation.
After we showed the guards of the National Park the book The Genus
Dionysia,
which contains some of the pictures made by
J.Archibald, they
offered to come
with us in order to show the plants they recognized from the book. From
the
guardhouse it was a few hundred meters to the mountain, and together
with
one of the guards I climbed further up to find the plants. Unfortunately
all plants
were past flowering, but we also have serious doubts about these plants
being
Dionysia michauxii.
Plants were growing on southeast facing cliffs at an altitude of approx.
2000m.
We also searched on the mountains very close to the city of Shiraz, but
did not
find any dionysias on this location.
This dionysia is one of the more demanding in cultivation, although not
that
difficult to propagate.
