OT:Neomarica

Three Neomarica species are blooming now in the greenhouse.

N. caerulea is a great plant.  The fans of leaves grow to 5 ft, with 
the flower stalks just topping them.  The flowers are big, about 4" 
across, with blue falls and standards; the standards marked with 
white and brown.  Last year this plant bloomed for more than a month, 
and this year both clones have several more stalks.  This was grown 
from SIGNA seed.

N. gracilis continues to do wonderfully well while quite crowded in a 
pot.  Yesterday there were 22 blooms open at once.  The flowers are a 
little smaller than the foregoing, and the falls are white instead of 
blue.

N. northiana seems to be a distinct species, while similar to 
gracilis. The plants seem a little more robust, with more erect, 
stiffer and greener foliage.  The buds show a definite tint of creamy 
yellow just before opening, which persists on the backs of the falls. 
The markings of blue and brown are also somewhat different from those 
on gracilis.  One plant has bloom on the "pups" from last year's 
bloom even though those have not rooted.

These northiana plants came to me from two sources, one labelled as 
northiana, and the others as "longifolia" which I think (not sure) is 
a synonym of Trimezia martinicensis.  True plants of the latter are 
very much like a yellow Neomarica, but more gracile plants with 
smaller flowers.  It has bloomed off and on all winter and a new 
stalk has a bud which should open this afternoon.

In all of these, the flowers only last a day, but many are produced 
from each stalk.  The stalks of Trimezia can continue to produce 
flowers for many weeks, sometimes resting for a while.  All of them 
also produce "pups" or offsets from the old bloomstalks, which root 
easily.  In the tropics these can be grown outside and gracilis and 
northiana are good houseplants.   Trimezia may be hardy to the 
southern parts of Z8.
-- 

Bill Shear
Department of Biology
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney VA 23943
(804)223-6172
FAX (804)223-6374
email<wshear@email.hsc.edu>
Moderating e-lists:
Coleus at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coleus
Opiliones at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/opiliones
Myriapod at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/myriapod

"How vain to try to teach youth, or anybody, truths!  They can only 
learn them after their own fashion, and when they get ready.  I do 
not mean by this to condemn our system of education but to show what 
it amounts to....The young men, being young, neccessarily listen to 
the lecturer in history, just as they do to the singing of a bird. 
The expect to be affected by something he might say.  It is a kind of 
poetic pabulum and imagery that they get.  Nothing comes quite amiss 
to their mill."

--Henry David Thoreau, Journals, December 31, 1860.

 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index