This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

Re: Medit: Mislabeled seeds (was lavender lady?)

Cheryl & Wayne Renshaw wrote:
 I hate it when you get mislabeled seeds. (snip)
> 
> Me too, although I like the challenge of identifying the resulting plant!
> More recently, I was given a plant by a friend, who said it was an iris
> douglasiana (a local native iris). It seemed a little too upright for that
> sort of iris, but I figured I'd go ahead and plant it. This spring, a
> flower stalk rose out of the foliage that looked distinctly un-iris
> douglasiana-like. Eventually, small blue flowers--three sepals, three
> petals--appeared on the branching flower stalk. My guess was that it was in
> the iris family, but not an iris or sisyrinchium. I talked to my friend,
> and he thought maybe he'd given me something he called Astraea instead,
> which he said was a native of New Zealand flax. A search for Astraea on the
> 'net brought up nothing but...seashells? However, I'd found this neat page
> on the International Bulb Society website that listed all genuses
> (genusii?) of "geophytic plants" (bulbs, etc., I guess). One genus listed
> was Aristea, and I thought, "Maybe he mixed up the name a bit." A search on
> Aristea brought up a photo of A. ecklonii, which matched my mystery flower.
> Success! :)

Congratulations on your successful detection.

I feel however, I must correct one misconception, though it will grow
well in New Zealand (almost too well, from the way it seeds around my
garden) Aristea ecklonii and other members of the genus all hale from
South Africa.

The giant of the genus is A. thyrsiflora, which has spikes up to 6 feet
tall, of the same vivid mid-blue. I have a clump in my own garden, but
it seems to need warmer conditions than I can give it, as it only
flowers very occasionally. 

Incidently, increase from seeds works best, as the clumps do not take
kindly to being divided.

Moira
-- 
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Both Retired. Careers were: Moira - botanist/horticulturist; 
Tony - Various jobs, then computer programmer.
Wainuiomata, Lower Hutt, New Zealand
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index