Moraea 2022

[MarcR]

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

[Paul Cumbleton]

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

[PaulFlowers]

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

[PaulFlowers]

Wow Paul

Are they in your raised bed? Seem to remember seeing shots of you building it.

Paul

[Paul Cumbleton]

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

[Maggi Young]

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?

[Paul Cumbleton]

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

[Maggi Young]

Oh my word, those 'Red Chief' are vibrant - very cheery. I love Californian poppies!

[Akke]

Paul(flowers)

Late, but thanks for the lovely pictures of your Moraea.

[MarcR]

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.

[PaulFlowers]

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

[ArnoldT]

Hi Paul

what is the name?

[PaulFlowers]

Arnold it is Moraea lurida - I’ve a few more flowering over the next few days - so expect variations on a theme.

[Maggi Young]

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

[MarcR]

Thank you, Maggi

That was indeed interesting You are very good at posting germaine articles on almost every thread.