Saturday, May 21, 2016

Moraea MM 12-144

Seed parent: Moraea gigandra
Pollen parent: Moraea neopavonia

The parents:

Ahhhh, cool! M. gigandra is the largest Moraea species, usually purple with a very narrow blue eye and dark center. I crossed it with my favorite orange and blue Moraea, and the result was this: large flowers with the general shape of M. gigandra, but purple-orange tepals and a hypnotic light blue eye. As with some of the other crosses, I hope I'm gradually edging toward red. But the stuff I'm getting along the way is very nice as well. These plants are fertile. The pollen's kind of clumpy, and I am not sure yet if the crosses with it worked. But the plants did set a couple of seed pods.

MM 12-144a. The central cup is very dark, and as you can see, the flowers look different under various lighting conditions (and as the flower ages).



MM 12-144b. This one has a bit more purple to it, and the central cup is lighter. Also, note the orange streak in the midline of the outer tepal.

MM 12-144c. Has the lighter cup and mid-tepal orange streak of form B, but the eye is darker and has a ragged edge.

MM 12-144d. Probably the pinkest of the four forms.

MM 12-144e. A big surprise, this one looks exactly like M. gigandra. Maybe part of the seed pod was self-pollinated?

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