Moraea MM 22-32

Seed parent: Moraea tripetala yell eye
Pollen parent: Moraea insolens

This is one of my first four hybrids with M. insolens, blooming for the first time this year, and it's a fascinating one.

Almost always when breeding Moraeas, I have found that when I cross an orange species with a purple one, I'll get an orange flower. Sometimes the orange is a bit lighter or more creamy, but it's almost always orange rather than purple. In this particular cross, for reasons I don't understand, the flowers came out more or less purple. There is a faint wash of orange in the background color of the flower, and the inner tepals of form b are more or less orange. The narrowness of the inner tepals is also a very tripetala thing; insolens has six large tepals, almost equal in size.

On the other hand, the dark center of insolens shows up clearly.

MM 22-32a

MM 22-32b