Re: Looking for plant ID
- Subject: Re: Looking for plant ID
- From: Tony and Moira Ryan t*@xtra.co.nz
- Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 12:08:19 +1300
david feix wrote:
>
> I'd agree with John's i.d. of the Aristea as being A.
> ecklonii. Take heed of John's warning on this plant
> seeding itself around in the garden, it is incredibly
> vigorous in a watered garden situation.
Hi
I am afraid I am a bit late with this, but I have had a lot of other
preoccupations recently.
I would like to question this identification. I seem to have lost the
particular e-mail but when quizzed about the pink colour of the pic. I
am pretty sure that Krysztof implied that thought this was not true, the
plant did actually have a slightly pinkish cast to its blue.
To my knowledge all Aristeas (apart from one white one) are
uncompromizingly bright blue and I presume the pigment is similar to the
one in gentians which is quite incapable of acquiring mauve tones (as
opposed to other main family of blue pigments, the anthocyans, which
can become pinkish if subjected to the approprite change in pH). The
other thing which did not seem to quite match was the lack of seedlings.
I do have one more likely candidate to suggest, which is quite a
look-alike for Aristea eklonii with a similar growth habit and long
spikes of mid-blue flowers which to me have a slightly purplish cast (or
anyway are not so agressively bright blue as the Aristea).
This is the Australian native, Orthrosanthus laxus (Morning Iris) which
forms large spreading evergreen clumps in my garden but establishes
seedlings only rarely. it flowers at the same time as the Aristea and
from a distance, when growing together as mine do, they can appear
identical at a casual glance. Where they can be most easily identified
as at the seeding stage as the fruiting stems are quite distinctive. I
could easily tell which was which if I could see a pic of some seed
pods.
I also grow O.multiflorus, but the flowers are distinctly paler.
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan,
Wainuiomata, North Island, NZ. Pictures of our garden at:-
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/cherie1/Garden/TonyandMoira/index.htm
