Fouquieria diguetii

Fouquieria diguetii
Date: 2004 August 7

This plant is grown from seed sown in 1994. This was the first time that the plant had flowered. Despite its 10 years of age, the plant is only 40cm tall, including the flower spike.

I hadn't expected to see flowers on any of my Fouquieria, as they are all quite small. Growth is always erratic. The plants usually grow leaves each year (they have the ability to re-grow leaves, actually on extremely short shoots, in the axils of old growth), but they don't often put on new stem-growth. I'm finding that giving more water in Summer seems to help. Without it, the plants can lose their leaves as quickly as they grew them, and return to dormancy.

I haven't seen this species in habitat (it's from Baja California, Mexico), but here is Fouquieria splendens growing in northern Mexico.