bulbs, tubers & corms II

Dietes from South Africa has handsome flowers which only last for a few hours

This Dietes has nearly white inner sepals (standards) with few, dark brown dots at the basis, while the outer sepals show honey-gold signals, dots and hairs. The petaloid styles are short, have blue markings and are crested, facing the nectar guides on the outer sepals (falls).

Dimension and colouring of petals and styles do not fit Dietes iridioides, or D. bicolor ssp. armeniaca. Could it be a hybrid between D. iridioides and D. bicolor?

The flowers of this Dietes are 7 – 7,5 cm across, each outer sepal (fall) is 45 x 30 mm. The roundish flower does remind of D. bicolor.

The grass-like leaves are up to 90cm long and 15 mm broad. The spike is 80 cm tall.

The bud develops during the night and opens with warmth around mid day of the second day

Like so many flowers of the Iris family, the threefold blooms are mesmerizing to human eyes

This Dietes produces seed capsules and viable seeds, so it can not be Dietes x ‘Nola Alba’, a patented – ¡NO PATENTS ON LIVING PLANTS! – cultivar of hybrid origin, which claims to be unfertile.

At my place and with my skills Dietes is a rather erratic germinating plant, growing at it’s own pace

 

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bulbs, tubers and corms I

Like a painting from Georgia O’Keeffe, a bud of Neomarica northiana is about to open, revealing part of its hidden interior

The central parts of of outer and inner tepals are densely covered with sticky glandular trichomes

There is an incredible shift from brown tones to vibrant blue ones, stripes on the inner sides of the tepals and dots on the outside

Insects are attracted to the centre of the flower where the powdery, dull blue pollen awaits polinators, mostly bees

Looking from above, the symmetry of the iris family becomes evident

Each flower of Neomarica northiana is big and showy. The buds appear overnight and anthesis occurs the next day, withering 14 hours later.

While individual flowers are ephemere, there will be more buds emerging sequentially from the basal bract, giving up to eight or nine flowers on every strong scape

While the individual flowers appear in succession, right from the start there are tiny leaves at the base of the inflorescence, which eventually grow to form a young plant making the scape bow down to earth – the walking iris.

Sometimes – hot weather spells help – there are two flowers together at the same scape.

to be continued

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