Plant Lovers in a Garden of Rare Delights : Endangered species: UCI Arboretum officials hope that the exotic, hard-to-get varieties sold to gardeners will propagate locally.

Small, brown, shallot-like, the moraea loubseri is a rather unprepossessing little plant in its infant stage.

But the obscure bulb managed to draw scores of plant lovers from throughout Southern California to the UC Irvine Arboretum on Saturday with the promise of an opportunity to own one of the rarest plants in the world.

In fact, UCI may have been the only place in the country where the loubseri and other rare plants--many endangered species, others nearly extinct--could be had for the price of two potted geraniums.

The annual sale, in its 10th year, was expected to bring in nearly $10,000 for the arboretum, to be used for such things as fertilizers, weed killer, tools and student assistants’ pay, said Garden Director Harold Koopowitz.

Although rare, the plants and bulbs are excess stock that have grown in the arboretum gardens for generations, Koopowitz said.

And although the primary purpose of the sale is to make money, it is also hoped that rare plants will take root and thrive in the ordinary gardens of ordinary people.

“Sometimes people don’t want the responsibility of growing things that are endangered,” said Koopowitz. “But our aim is to propagate them, and it’s nice if they do survive in someone’s garden.”

Most of the plants are from areas of South Africa where encroaching urbanization and cultivation of vineyards and wheat fields threaten many rare species with extinction, Koopowitz said.

The plants thrive in the sandy, arid soils of Southern California, which shares a similar climate to South Africa’s.

The UCI Arboretum, created in 1976, has taken advantage of the ideal conditions to become a leading grower of exotic plants. It holds one of the biggest bulb collections--more than 10,000 species--in the world, Koopowitz said.

The nearly extinct loubseri will develop from the bulb into a spectacular plant of blue, butterfly-like petals crowned with black tufts.

Visitors to the arboretum Saturday had to be content with mostly bulbs and greenery, however, because the South African plants grow in the winter and only bloom between February and April.

One exotic species--the cyrtanthus obliquis --a potted plant with long green leaves, will not bloom for about five years, said another plant expert.

Those prospects did not deter Irvine resident Irena Weygold, who scooped up the obliquis as well as unusual species of lily and gladiolus for her collection.

Weygold, an avid collector who proudly claimed to have more than 90 potted plants lodged on her small patio, called Saturday’s sale a plant lover’s dream.

“Maybe I’ll get rid of the geraniums and just start growing these exotic ones,” she smiled, while handing over nearly $50 to the cashier for her two plants and seedlings. “Knowing that these plants are so rare, it’s even more important to take care of them so they won’t die out.”