Hermodactylus tuberosus

[Gail]

Hi Gail,
I've never heard of anyone having success with this cross and I would seriously doubt that there is any chance it would work. Hermodactylus stands alone in a monospecific genus, I have found reference to and I suspect will no more cross with reticulata types than reticulata will cross with juno types.
Info googled - Hermodactylus 2n=44,  Iris reticulata 2n=20

Thank you for the information.  I may try some pollen dabbling anyway - like the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass I'm a firm believer in impossible things before breakfast!

By the way, I bought some Paeonia peregrina seed from you off ebay.  Is that a common species in Bulgaria?

[Gail]

Amazing colours and great photos. Lets hope seed will be available sometime.  This is a photo of my Hermodactylus tuberosus which Roy Elliott gave to me in 1987. It did not take to my pot cultivation, but planted outside it has grown very well and flowers each year.
Mike

That's another fantastic Hermodactylus picture Mike.  Have you got it in a particularly sunny spot?

[Mike Ireland]

Hi Gail
The plants do grow in full sun, the leaves show very early and are already 6" long.  This frosty weather does not seem to do the leaves any harm.

Mike

[pittaro90]

Hi, I'm a new italian member, i'd like to show you my Hermodactylus tuberosum (or Iris tuberosum) because i haven't seen it on this forum.
PS=sorry for my terrible english


Edit by Maggi :27th May 2010: pictures were loaded from an exterior hosting site and have disappeared!

[Maggi Young]

Hi, Pittaro90, welcome to the Forum.
Good to have you join us... don't worry about your English... we'll be able to understand you perfectly well, I'm sure. 

Lovely photos of  the "Widow Iris"... one of my favourites, always so very elegant.
Wherabouts in Italy are you?  Do you grow many bulbs?

[pittaro90]

Hi, i live in Bologna that is in the Pianura Padana. About bulbs now i have Crocus sativus(saffron), Hermodactylus tuberosum, Tulipa pulchela albocaerulea, Camassia, Chasmanthe, Nerine bowdeni, Ismene festalis, Hymenocallis littoralis, Hemerocallis, Pancratium maritimum and Cyclamen hederifolium, but i don't have only bulbs, i like also Ipomoeas and strange plants.

[Gail]

Hi Pittaro90,
Sounds like a lovely mix of plants that you grow, and a lovely place to grow them in!
Beautiful pictures of your Hermodactylus - one of my favourite plants.  It does have another thread on the forum but not in the bulb section; it is under Specific Genera, Iris.

see http://www.srgc.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=3280.0

[Lesley Cox]

Thanks for the link Gail. I haven't looked back yet but I remember someone showed pictures from the wild of different coloured forms.

[PeterT]

Bob Brown (cotswold garden plants) keeps a few different numberd collections - they are very distinct in coulor

[meanie]

When checking out the varieties at CGF, I noticed that without exception he recommended limy soil.
He also recommended sun, which means that I've made a boo-boo!

[Maggi Young]

Don't feel too bad about it, Meanie.... my own optimism (or should that be pig-headedness?) has lead me down that very path many times. 
There's a lot of it about in gardening circles!

[meanie]

Well, they get sun up until midday........
I feel a bit stupid now. In my defense, this is only my second season since I moved here!

[meanie]

Seems that sun up to midday is enough after all, as three of my plantings have flower buds!

[Maggi Young]

That's hopeful news. 

[wooden shoe]

This is what's flowering now in my garden. I found that the seeds do not store well. I had stored some for the SRGC exchange but had to throw them away, they were al shriveled up.
I grow them in neutral sandy soil with sun except in the evening, on the feet of lilies.