Dear Mary Sue, Wonderful answer. One of your pictures does look very similar to what I have. I am intrigued by the variation year to year. Kind regards, Ashley __________________________ Ashley Mooney t:- 021 0416930 e:- ashleymooneynz@gmail.com On Wed, May 19, 2021 at 3:20 AM Mary Sue Ittner via pbs < pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> wrote: > In my experience Ixias hybridize easily so if you grow a lot of species > it may be difficult to identify them to species level. I have a pink one > flowering at the moment in a pot where I don't think I've planted and it > may be safer just to consider it a hybrid as it is a bit different than > pink ones I've grown in the past. I remember John Manning saying that if > we aren't careful about isolating species we are probably all growing > hybrids. Gordon Summerfield who sells seed and bulbs makes it a practice > to hand pollinate and then make sure nothing else can come along > afterwards. I don't think anyone has attempted to update the wiki after > so many changes to the taxonomy. This always takes hours and hours of > study and looking at recent papers which may or may not agree. If you > look at the Plants of the World Online listing of species you will see > there are a lot to choose from: > > > http://plantsoftheworldonline.org/taxon/… > > In the 1999 monograph on Ixioideae Miriam de Vos and Peter Goldblatt > listed four varieties of Ixia polystachya. Now none of them is > recognized. Var. longistylis is now considered to be Ixia longistylis. > I grow a white Ixia with a blue center (probably from seed exchange > seed) that I often wondered whether it was Ixia polystachya or Ixia > monadelpha, but decided maybe it was that variety. But it could just be > a hybrid. That variety was distinguished from the others by having a > style dividing halfway up the anthers. Flowers were mauve or white, with > a greenish blue or dark blue center and stamens were suberect, often > dark, and it had linear leaves, narrower than leaves of the other > varieties. Taxonomy these days doesn't seem to depend so much on what a > plant looks like which makes it very challenging for those of us who > want to name our plants. Add in that future versions don't always look > the same. On my first trip to South Africa I was amazed at the variation > in the wild. I realized that my knowledge of a plant often came from a > single photo and that species when seen where it was native often looked > very different. Since Ashley grows a lot of Ixias, her plant could be a > hybrid or maybe a form of Ixia longistylis. > > I'm attaching photos of my white Ixia with a blue center taken 3 > different years: 2008, 2012, 2016. I thought it was Ixia polystachya, > but maybe it really is Ixia longistylis or a hybrid of it. As I have > spent more time in my garden in the pandemic I have discovered lots of > interesting flowers I didn't plant so are probably hybrids. I'll attach > a couple Ixias of unknown heritage that recently flowered and that pink > one that has appeared in a pot where I didn't plant it. > > Mary Sue > > -------------- next part -------------- > A non-text attachment was scrubbed... > Name: Ixia_polystachya_2008.jpg > Type: image/jpeg > Size: 167907 bytes > Desc: not available > URL: < > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/pipermail/pbs/… > > > -------------- next part -------------- > A non-text attachment was scrubbed... > Name: Ixia_polystachya_2012.jpg > Type: image/jpeg > Size: 231234 bytes > Desc: not available > URL: < > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/pipermail/pbs/… > > > -------------- next part -------------- > A non-text attachment was scrubbed... > Name: Ixia_polystachya_white_2016_msi2.jpg > Type: image/jpeg > Size: 112382 bytes > Desc: not available > URL: < > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/pipermail/pbs/… > > > -------------- next part -------------- > A non-text attachment was scrubbed... > Name: Ixia_unknown_yellow_2021.jpg > Type: image/jpeg > Size: 328363 bytes > Desc: not available > URL: < > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/pipermail/pbs/… > > > -------------- next part -------------- > A non-text attachment was scrubbed... > Name: Ixia_unknown_pink_2021.jpg > Type: image/jpeg > Size: 326331 bytes > Desc: not available > URL: < > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/pipermail/pbs/… > > > -------------- next part -------------- > A non-text attachment was scrubbed... > Name: Ixia_hybrid_2021.jpg > Type: image/jpeg > Size: 283498 bytes > Desc: not available > URL: < > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/pipermail/pbs/… > > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… > Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> > _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net>
