The plant in question was growing in a partly shady area of a private garden belonging to Pierce Community College. This garden is in the Los Angeles area of California with lots of sun and heat. The leaves of the plant are extremely reminiscent of Sea Lavender leaves, except the folding in the foliage is much more dramatic in the plant I saw, and the leaves are a few inches longer, about 7-8 inches on average. The leaves of the plant I saw were also brighter green than Sea Lavender. I saw this plant during its flowering season about mid-Spring and a couple hours ago towards the end of this particular specimens flowering cycle. The flowers are up on stalks, and are almost identical to the colors and layout of Kniphofia uvaria. I actually have new pictures of the plant now, although it appears it is not as healthy as it was before. Anyone know what it is now?
If the flowers look like, and are the same colour as, Knifphofia uvaria, then maybe some sort of Aloe? I have no idea how the reference to sea lavender (Limonium sp.) would relate to that, though. Various aloes in bloom: https://www.google.ca/search?q=amer...=1642&bih=1232#rls=en&tbm=isch&q=aloe+flowers
Although the seed pods are similar, mine never looked like balloons like the Cardiospermum pods do. The image I linked in the original post is the seed pods an hour or two after being removed, they were never as round as Cardiospermum. The leaves of Cardiospermum are also vastly different than the plant I saw.
It's like this, or close enough for government work; The plant I saw has the leaves of Sea Lavender (Limonium sp.) and the stalk along with the same colors of flowers as Red Hot Poker (Kniphofia uvaria) The plant lacked any sort of fleshy leaf that your traditional Succulent or cacti is known for. I can't find any information on this plant, even when I used the description with nursery growers. Could it be new?
The thread was updated with new images, if bumping my own thread is not allowed I apologize. When the flowers weren't dead, they looked almost exactly like this;
Harmonious J, I know you started by saying that the leaves look different from Kniphofia but the flowers looked similar, but I wonder if there are not just two plants there. I do see two strappy Kniphofia-like leaves in the photos that are now in the the first posting.
This one was bugging me, so I asked around. Alpine Garden Curator, Brent Hine suggested Veltheimia. I have never heard of this African genus before, but looks like the plant.
Thanks to everyone for the responses, I think we have the plant. Aside from the color of the flowers, the plant is identical to many variations of Veltheimia. Thank you for clearing that up, Eric!
