Species

B. baumannii

Photos

5 photos

Identity

Genus: Begonia
Name: B. baumannii
Author: Lemoine, Jardin
Publication Date: 1890
Date of Origin: 1866
Place: Cochabamba
Country: Bolivia
Region: America
Section: Australes
Chr 2n: 24
Plant Type: Tuberous
Synonyms and Comments: B. odoratissima hort, J. Soc. Nat. Hort, France IV, 27:265. 1926;
Reference: Jardin 4:273, pl. 1890. “beaumanni”—L. Wittmack, Gartenfl. 40:47. 1891. —J.D. Hooker, Bot. Mag. 123:pl. 7540. 1897; JGSL9/08; The Garden vol.80, 1916; 1892-Garden-and-forest-v5-p247;
Article References: Wiener illustrirte Garten-Zeitung, jahr. 15, (1890); Curtis Botanical Mag. V. 123 = ser. 3, v. 53, 1897;
Photo References: Image source: The Begonian, Feb 1941; The Begonian, Jul 1948;

Plant

Description: Wiener illustrirte Garten-Zeitung, jahr. 15, (1890) Begonia Baumanni - One of the most interesting novelties, which enriched our assortment a very strong, abundant, and fragrant species, and was also able to serve others in another direction, was first discovered in 1886 by Dr. Ing. Sacc from Cochabamba in Bolivia to E.N. Baumann in Bollwiller, Alsace, and is currently being marketed by Victor Lemoine at Nancy, who has taken over all the augmentation of this striking novelty. W. E. Gembleton, the well-known novelty plant lover in Belgrave, Cork, has already drawn the plant in his garden and thinks that it is a very special acquisition whose distribution could be recommended. In August 1886 the "Revue horticole" brought the description of this novelty, which in the coming years will please all flower lovers. Sacc wrote then: This new begonia is a very fine plant and one of the largest and strongest growing of the whole family. It occurs in great numbers and in Maasen in the damp forests of the northern Cordilleras, where it is visited by the cattle, thus at any rate provides an excellent, rich and juicy fodder. The dimensions of this Begonia are considerable; For example, the bulbous root usually reaches the size of a melon and often weighs close to 400 grams. The flowers are of truly brilliant pink, the leaves very broad, thick, and of a very deep, dark green. The flowers exude an extremely pleasant fragrance, which is strongly reminiscent of primroses. The culture should be the same as that used for the tuberous types; good, light ground, enough water and partly shade, as full sun turns the flowers yellow and they drop. It can be well and easily used for both room and window cultivation, since it will flower through nine out of the 12 months of the year and rest only during the three winter months. The bloom stalks are abundantly produced, and often up to twenty-five on one plant, and each of them bears three or six flowers, of which the male are larger and more beautiful than the female, and more often more than not, double.; Curtis Botanical Mag. V. 123 = ser. 3, v. 53, 1897 Begonia Baumannii belongs to the tuberous-rhizomed group of the genus, which includes B. Veitchii, Hk. f. (Tab. - 5663), B. Clarkei, Hk. f. (Tab. 5675) and B. rosaeflora, Hk. £. (Tab. 5680), and some of which have proved to be, as I ventured to predict in publishing B. Veitchii in 1867, amongst the most ornamental of border plants. They have been referred by myself and others to the section Huszia, A.DC., which contains species with different types of stigmas; those of B. Veitchii, for instance, having the arms elongate, with a spiral line of stigmatic papillae, whilst those of B. rosaeflora and Baumanni have short, broadly truncate stigmas, cleft on the ventral side, but not 2-lobed, with undulate convolute margins, and the papillae are confined to the truncate upper margins. Recently M. Fourier has proposed (Bull. Soc. Centr. d'Hortic. de France," Ser. 3) (1879) a new grouping of the tuberous Begonias, according to which B. Baumanni is placed in section Lemoineae characterized by the monoecious flowers, males with 4-8 petals, fem. with 5, stigmas persistent, with horse-shoe shaped arms (hardly the case in B. Baumanni) and 2-fid placentas. It includes the sections Huszia, Eupetalum, and Barya of A. de Candolle. B. Baumanni is a native of Cochibamba in the Eastern Andes of Central Bolivia, the capital of which (of the same name) is 8396 ft. above the sea. From thence seeds were sent to Herrn E. N. Baumann of Bolivia, in honor of whom the plant is named. The drawing here given was made from a plant which flowered in a cool greenhouse of the Royal Gardens in September 1896. It succeeds also in summer in the open air. Description: Rootstock globose, attaining the dimensions of a middle-sized melon; stem petiole and branches of inflorescence and pedicels bright rose-red, sparsely hairy. Stems one to one and a half feet high, stout, leafy. Leaves with stout petioles, three to five inches broad, fleshy, reniform, doubly crenate, palmately nerved, sparsely hispidulous on both surfaces, and on the margins, and on the stout flabellate nerves beneath, bright green above, paler beneath, and often suffused with red; petiole four to six inches long. Flowers monoecious, very large, rose red in a lax terminal nodding few-fld. raceme, very sweet-scented; bracts lacerate ; pedicels one to three inches long, stout. Male flowers upward of three inches in diameter. Petals four, subcuneately orbicular. Stamens crowded in a globose mass; filaments short, free; anthers obovoid. Fem. flowers about two and a half inches in diameter. Petals 5, unequal, cuneately obovate or orbicular. Styles 3, short, broadly cuneate, truncate, convolute, and undulate, stigmatose along the upper margins only. Ovary fleshy, green, hairy, with three thick wings, two of them rounded, the other cuneiform, three-celled; placentas bipartite, segments ovuliferous on both faces. - J. D. H.
Plant Height: Low

Lineage

3 descendants

Parents

No parentage recorded.

B. odoratissima hort, J. Soc. Nat. Hort, France IV, 27:265. 1926;

Descendants

3 recorded children

As female parent

B. ‘Elsie M. Frey’

Male parent: B. radicans

B. ‘Wild Rose’

Male parent: B. 1041

As male parent

B. ‘Nancy’

Female parent: B. socotrana

Culture

Comments: Used to produce narcissus flowered types.
Original Botanical Description or Link to: B. baumanni The American florist: a weekly journal for the trade. Chicago: American Florist Company, [1885-1931] v.7 1891-92 Page 561: http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/80380 We present here, with an illustration of this new sweet scented tuberous begonia, from which so much is expected. It is anticipated that this will not only be a very popular plant, but that in time the hybridizer will be able to make it the parent of a race of sweet scented sorts. The variety illustrated, was discovered in Bolivia. The flowers are bright rose in color. A complete description appeared on page 4-1-2 of our issue of Dec. 31 last.