Moraeas in bloom

Mary Sue Ittner msittner@mcn.org
Thu, 17 Mar 2005 08:23:46 PST
Dear All,

I got a private confirmation that the photo from Wave Hill was of Moraea 
vegeta, not M. gawleri with the comment to look at the leaves. "According 
to Goldblatt - The Moraeas of Southern Africa - more vegetation = vegeta". 
So I have renamed it and moved it. I decided for sure that the Moraea I am 
growing that is now flowering is vegeta too. The seed pods are distinctive. 
So once again in spite of getting it from what I thought was a reliable 
source I still don't have Moraea papilionacea. Bob Werra tells me he hasn't 
had luck with it either so maybe it isn't meant to grow in Northern 
California. I took a picture of my Moraea vegeta plants yesterday since 
there were a lot of blooms and was reminded of a comment by Will Ashburner 
that he thought his Moraeas bloomed best the first year they bloomed from 
seed. Anyone else have this experience?

I hunted through the digital pictures my husband took in South Africa to 
see if I could find any that we thought could be  M. gawleri and found 
three. I hope I am right. I've added them to the wiki. While I was at it I 
found some other wild flowering Moraeas so also added pictures of Moraea 
neglecta and Moraea thomasiae. When we spent the day looking for animals in 
the Bontebok Park we saw more flowers than animals and there were about 
five or six different species of Moraea in bloom if I recall correctly so 
two of the pictures were taken there.

I also added a picture of M. tulbaghensis taken in Gordon Summerfield's 
collection.

One of these days there also will be some pictures from Bob Werra's 
collection. Our Moraea wiki page is getting very long in spite of our 
separating out Galaxia, Homeria, and Gynandriris. It's a large genus so am 
not quite sure how else we could divide it.

Mary Sue


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