Moraea MM 13-07

Seed parent: Moraea villosa a+
Pollen parent: Moraea villosa d

I was hoping that combining these two flowers – a mauve-brown one and a streaky purple one – would produce some interesting color combinations. The bet paid off nicely – these flowers have a wonderful variety of pastel colors.

MM 13-07a

MM 13-07b

MM 13-07c

MM 13-07d

MM 13-07e. I love the vivid blue eyes on this one. Unfortunately, as you can see, the reproductive parts of the flower are badly malformed. I tried to scrape a bit of pollen out of there, but there's not much of it, and I couldn't tell if it would make viable seedlings.

I noticed in 2020 that the seed capsule on one of these flowers was starting to swell while it was still in bloom (see below). The swelling was unusual in that it was in the top half of the capsule only. Usually the capsules develop uniformly, not at one end; they never develop until after blooming; and besides this plant doesn't have proper reproductive parts. I have no idea what's going on, but the half-capsule ripened and appeared to have normal seeds in it. I will plant them and see what happens...

2022 update: One seed from that pod sprouted. We'll have to wait another couple of years to see if it blooms. In the meantime, those bits of pollen I scraped out of the flower were apparently fertile, and five crosses I made with them sprouted. No flowers yet...

MM 13-07f. Note the crazy long recurved style crests at the center of this flower. They look like bighorn sheep.

MM 13-07g

I planted a lot of the seeds from this cross, and ended up with a big cluster of corms. Most of the flowers in the center of the photo below are from 13-07. There are many that I haven't assigned letters to...

Check out the inner tepals on this one (the three small petals between the large petals). They're extremely long, and curled around like the villain's moustache in an old silent  movie.

Here are a couple more flowers, photographed by Garry Knipe, who also assigned letters to them.

MM 13-07 B2

MM 13-07 B3