Moraea MM 17-82

Seed parent: MM 13-125 ((M. aristata x villosa) X bellendenii)
Pollen parent: Unknown

This pod was open pollinated (or maybe self-pollinated, since it grows it in a screened bed).

I am fascinated by these flowers that have an eye with a dot in the middle.

Moraea MM 17-77

Seed parent: MM 13-177b (M. gigandra X calcicola)
Pollen parent: MM 13-109 (M. villosa form a+ X (atropunctata x neopavonia))

So here's a rich purple flower crossed with a rosy purple flower. I wonder what we'll get?

The answer is, we got a surprising amount of variety. Here's a family portrait.

MM 17-77a. Very interesting color pattern. I've started to get this in a few hybrids. Question: is that an orange eye, or are we seeing an orange background color where the eye should ahve been, and there's no actual eye at all? Check out 17-77b for a hint.

MM 17-77b. This flower has an orange area similar to the hybrid above, but this one has a narrow dark crescent-shaped eye. Plus the tepals have a faint rosy blush. Nice!

MM 17-77c

Some siblings:

Moraea MM 17-72

Seed parent: MM 12-49 (M. loubseri X gigandra)
Pollen parent: MM 13-109 (M. villosa X (atropunctata x neopavonia))

Wellll, it looks like I mislabeled this cross, or maybe a stray seed drifted into the planting bed. This looks very much like a hybrid with M. neopavonia.

Moraea MM 17-70

Seed parent: MM 12-139a (M. 'Zoe' X atropunctata)
Pollen parent: MM 13-197b (lurida X villosa)

So here's a cross that I thought would be awesome: A heavily spotted flower crossed with a heavily veined hybrid. The resulting flowers ought to be awesomely complicated, right? Well, uh...

MM 17-70a. I don't know what to say.

Moraea MM 17-67

Seed parent: MM 12-158 (M. bellendenii X ((atropunctata x neopavonia) x (atropunctata x neopavonia)))
Pollen parent: Moraea 'Zoe'

This cross brought together a white and purple spotted flower and a very cheerful lemon yellow flower. Naturally, the most interesting flower from it was white with no spots.

17-67a. I completely love that dreamy blue-green eye.

Some other siblings without letters. I love the hairy edge on the eye in the flower below...

Moraea MM 17-63

Seed parent: MM 12-68b (M. atropunctata? X (atropunctata x calcicola))
Pollen parent: MM 12-68a

Based on the colors of these hybrids, and those of the reciprocal cross MM 17-61, I think it's likely that the M. atropunctata marked with a question mark above was actually some other species, perhaps M. neopavonia or tulbaghensis. Anyway, some of the flowers are a rich deep tangerine color that I really like, and some have interesting spots on them.

Here's a family portrait:

MM 17-63a

MM 17-63b. This one is pretty cool, once the flowers open fully.

MM 17-63c. No spots, but the tepals are much wider, and I love that color.

Moraea MM 17-61

Seed parent: MM 12-68a (M. atropunctata X (atropunctata x calcicola)
Pollen parent: MM 12-68b

Given the color of the first flower below, there's no way I have the parentage correct for this cross. I don't know what happened. See MM 17-63 for more information.

MM 17-61a. These flowers are intriguing: they're a deep tangerine orange, and the dark greenish eye is cool. But what you can't see is that the flowers are very small, held very tight against the stem where they don't fully open, and totally sterile.

MM 17-61b. This one I could maybe believe as a cross involving atropunctata and calcicola. Atropunctata sometimes produces flowers with cream tepals and orange centers.

Moraea MM 17-58

Seed parent: MM 13-206a (M. lurida?)
Pollen parent: MM 13-125b (bellendenii X (aristata x villosa))

(I'm pretty sure the seed parent was a self-pollinated M. lurida, although technically it was supposed to be a cross between lurida and a tulbaghensis x villosa hybrid.) The pollen parent has the typical disrupted eye of a bellendenii cross, and I wanted to see how that would interact with lurida. The results were interesting.

MM 17-58a. The eye is reduced to a single dark crescent, and the central cup is an interesting burnt orange color.

MM 17-58b. No orange in this one, but the eye is yellow rimmed in black.

Moraea MM 17-54

Seed parent: MM 12-09b (M. gigandra X ((atropunctata? x neopavonia) x (atropunctata? x neopavonia))
Pollen parent: MM 11-35c ((atropunctata x neopavonia) x villosa c) X (atropunctata x neopavonia)

Pretty complex parentage on this one, huh? The seed parent is a bizarre purple-yellow hybrid, while the pollen parent is orange with purple overtones. I had no idea what to expect from this cross, but I figured it would be interesting. And it is...

MM 17-54a. I like this one a lot.

MM 17-54b.

Moraea MM 17-53

Seed parent: Moraea neopavonia with blue eye
Pollen parent: Moraea tulbaghensis with green eye

M. tulbaghensis often has a very attractive green eye, but its flowers are small and cup-shaped, so the eye is hard to see. Could I transfer the green eye to the larger, flatter flower of M. neopavonia? As it turns out, yes.

MM 17-53c.

Here's a sibling:

Moraea MM 17-50

Seed parent: Moraea neopavonia with blue eye
Pollen parent: Moraea 'Zoe'

Interesting. The pollen parent is the most spotted Moraea I know. I thought I'd get a spotted orange flower from this cross, but instead they're all shades of yellow and peach, with no spots. This has turned out to be typical when I do crosses with M. neopavonia. I'm now anxious to see what will happen when I make F2 crosses with these plants.

MM 17-50a.

MM 17-50b

Here are some siblings.

Moraea MM 17-43

Seed parent: Moraea tulbaghensis with green eye
Pollen parent: Moraea tripetala with white eye

MM 17-43a. That green eye kind of glows when the light hits it right.

Moraea MM 17-41

Seed parent: MM 12-139b (M. 'Zoe' X atropunctata)
Pollen parent: MM 12-139a (M. 'Zoe' X atropunctata)

This is an F2 (second generation) hybrid cross between two very heavily spotted flowers. Their offspring have an interesting variety of spot patterns.

Let's start with a couple of family photos:

MM 17-41a. This one is about as densely spotted as you can possibly get.

Here are some other siblings.