Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Specific Families and Genera => Iris => Topic started by: PaulFlowers on February 23, 2022, 05:38:21 AM
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Moraea fugax (blue). This is a big flower for a tiny plant. I bought it as a bulb from Telos in USA.
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Some different types of Moraea villosa
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Moraea trisucspidata - although the flowers are tiny compared to size in book descriptions. It’s my index finger on the second pic for scale.
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Moraea gigandra - this has the biggest flowers. There are yellow and white ones in the wild
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Moraea macrocarpa - this is small and cute. Seed pod massive!
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Moraea vegata - this is small too
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A yellow Moraea fugax
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A classic Moraea tulbaghensis - slight cup shape. Makes me feel
Like it’s not opening properly
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Moraea tulbaghensis (this type used to be neopavonia-connecting it to tigridias which is nice)
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these plants are wonderful.
I try to sow them, but I have a lot of trouble keeping them alive.
How do you grow them?
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Veronique - very dry in early summer (in doors), in the garden in late summer/early autumn till the first frosts (enjoying the cool Scottish nights and plenty of rain), then in doors under LED lights till they go dormant
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The diminutive Moraea cilata
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Moraea aristata - such blue eyes!
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Moraea loubseri
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Moraea tripetala
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Moraea tricolor - a few different colours
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Really enjoying your great selection of Moraea, Paul!
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Thanks Maggi - just sharing my obsession …..hoping to obsess others!
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Moraea is probably the genus that makes me most envious of those who can grow them! Gorgeous flowers - that blue and orange-gold <i>tulbaghensis<\i> is especially swoonworthy. Please do keep the piccies coming, they're a wonderful antidote to grim, grey weather at the tail-end of an English winter.
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Redmires - they certainly keep my mental health going through the darkest days. This is one that never fails to lift my spirits - Moraea elegans - chocolate scented. Hoping for a lot of seed from these to donate.
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Moraea miniata
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Moraea bellendenii
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Moraea setifolia - tiny and charming. I thought I was running out of Moraeas yesterday morning but three species bloomed! This one was a complete surprise
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Are they hardy Paul?
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thanks for the photos of this beautiful species, Paul
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Shelagh
They are borderline hardy at best. I’ve had some grow accidentally in the garden through very cold winters (m. Setifolia above). I’ve also had them do well in an unheated greenhouse (again by accident). When I’ve actually tried to grow them outside they’ve died. I’m going to be systematic about trying them in the greenhouse again next winter.
In the central belt of Scotland the low light levels are a problem too. I have an odd annual cycle of moving them around. I spend a lot if time moving plants around! Out into the garden and rain in august, into the house when serious frosts loom (November if lucky), under LED lights till around now, dry storage till august (and repotting if they’re lucky).
There are a whole range of summer growing Moraeas too- very hard to come by in general. The few that are available relatively easily are hardy. They’re quite big chunky things with a lot of strappy evergreen leaves.
I’ll be donating seeds this year so they’re worth having a go with. Planted in late summer the seeds start growing by Sept etc. Only 3-4 years to wait till the flowers!
All the best
Paul
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In my experience, most are hardy in zone 8b min 15F 9.4C.
According to my old Silverhill printed catalogs, several are hardy to zone 7 0F -12C
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Moraea simulans - this one is small but very lovely for the hours it’s open
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This has been a nice surprise - my label had aged so much it was not legible. I think this might be 2.5 years from seed - moraea polyanthus (I think!). I read last night if I keep watering it, it could keep flowering for ages!
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MarcR - any chance you could share the list of hardier ones? I wonder if it relates to location or species? Or a mix?
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MarcR - any chance you could share the list of hardier ones? I wonder if it relates to location or species? Or a mix?
From Silverhill Catalog 2009:
M. alticola z6 M. hesperantha Z7 M. inclinata Z7 M. spathulata Z7 M. trifida Z7
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We have had Moraea polystacha and Moraea aristata outside unprotected for 5 years, with the coldest they have experienced being minus 8 centigrade. This was not deleterious to them.
Paul
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Thanks so much Marc
I’ve got some Trifida seed just now from Silverhill.
A lot of these are from the summer rainfall area - I’ve seen some great specimens in Edinburgh botanical gardens.
All the best
Paul
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Wow Paul
Are they in your raised bed? Seem to remember seeing shots of you building it.
Paul
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Hi Paul,
Yes the Moraea are in our raised bed. The M. polystacha is outstanding, starting to flower in September and not finishing until January. The clump is also increasing over time. We use annuals with tap roots such as Eschscholzia californica to help take out some of the summer moisture.
Paul
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Hi Paul,
Yes the Moraea are in our raised bed. The M. polystacha is outstanding, starting to flower in September and not finishing until January. The clump is also increasing over time. We use annuals with tap roots such as Eschscholzia californica to help take out some of the summer moisture.
Paul
As an aside, Paul, do your Eschscholzia californica self-seed or do you raise more each year?
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Hi Maggi,
The Eschscholzias self seed quite prolifically. A lot germinate in the autumn but we have found that if we let these overwinter they make plants by the following Spring that are too large already and they shade out or obscure the bulbs. So we weed out most of those. More germinate in the Spring each year and these we leave to grow. As well as the traditional orange, we like the cultivar 'Red Chief' very much, it is such a rich colour. It crosses with the oranges to give other shades which could be described as "burnt orange" which are also very attractive. When left to self seed, over time the colours all tend to revert to orange, so we also sow a few fresh seeds of 'Red Chief' every Spring to keep this colour going. The bed looks glorious, full of colour, every summer and really lifts our spirits.
Paul
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Oh my word, those 'Red Chief' are vibrant - very cheery. I love Californian poppies!
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Paul(flowers)
Late, but thanks for the lovely pictures of your Moraea.
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these plants are wonderful.
I try to sow them, but I have a lot of trouble keeping them alive.
How do you grow them?
Véronique,
Here in zone 8b I am able to leave them in the ground all year and most are evergreen for me.
Many of mine are in active growth all winter. M. hiemalis flowers in January & February.
They need dry Summers; but we don't get Summer rain.
If you live in the South of France you probably have nearly the same climate as I do or a little warmer.
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This is one of the last to flower and one of my favourites. It’s a fly pollinated Moraea. Scent is like ferraria or mild fritillaria. I think the flower is supposed to resemble carion. Although there are a rainbow of colours in wild populations, outside South Africa there seems to be only cream and yellow. This specimen came from a donation to SABG from the late Terry Smale.
Moraea lurida
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Hi Paul
what is the name?
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Arnold it is Moraea lurida - I’ve a few more flowering over the next few days - so expect variations on a theme.
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Thought this might be of interest :
Remarkable floral colour variation in the functionally specialized fly-pollinated iris, Moraea lurida
Monika Moir, Steven D Johnson, Bruce Anderson
Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, boac009, https://doi.org/10.1093/botlinnean/boac009
"Abstract
Sapromyophilous flowers are visited by flies seeking carrion or faeces, and flowers of this guild are typically large, purple or red-brown, often speckled and produce a pungent scent. Flowers of the South African iris Moraea lurida conform to this syndrome, but show considerable variation in colour and pattern. We were intrigued by the floral variation within a single population and investigated floral visitors and the effect of body size on pollen loads and whether different colour forms attracted different pollinator assemblages. We found a diverse array of insect visitors, but Diptera comprised the overwhelming majority, with Calliphoridae considered to be the most important for pollination on the basis of their visitation frequency and pollen loads. Effective pollination appeared to be dependent on large-bodied flies that, unlike smaller flies, fit the entire crawl space between the anthers and petals and thus acted like a key in a lock. Choice experiments revealed that the most important fly pollinators showed no colour preferences, and fly vision modelling showed that flies may not be able to discriminate among the different colour forms. This may lead to relaxed selection on colour. Floral scent was dominated by an unusual mix of aliphatic acids and alcohols, characteristic of mammalian skin products and gut microbiome, probably exploiting the perceptual bias of flies to compounds that typify the mammalian microbiome and fermenting carbohydrates."
https://academic.oup.com/botlinnean/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/botlinnean/boac009
/6550628?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false
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Thank you, Maggi
That was indeed interesting You are very good at posting germaine articles on almost every thread.
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Hi Paul (Flowers),
thanks for the moraea pics.
Just be careful with M. setifolia if it sets seed for you - it has a habit of turning up in other pots!
Moraea polystachya is just starting here but we'll have to wait a few months for the spring flowering types,
cheers
fermi
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Maggi - thanks for article link - fascinating! All my lurida are variations on a yellow/black/cream theme and all equally stinky
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There are certainly a lot of Moraeas.
I haven't had flowers yet, just incredibly long leaves on pendula, setifolia, spathulata and tripetala.
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Dianne,
These should all be flowering by now, especially the setosa.
You could be giving them too much nitrogen. Try withholding nitrogen fertilizers and you might try light application of 0-10-10.