More Moraea (Homeria group) pictures
Mary Sue Ittner (Sat, 26 Apr 2003 18:41:23 PDT)

Dear Paul and Lyn,

Are the ones you mentioned Lyn allowed or not allowed? I thought Moraea
(Homeria) miniata and flaccida were the declared weeds in Australia. There
is a concern besides their weediness that they would be poisonous to stock.

I went out today in response to Paul's question and measured my flowers.
Most of them have a diameter of about 2 inches (5 cm.), but the range was 1
1/2 to 2 1/2 inches. M. pendula has two leaves instead of one and none of
the leaves are as long as M. marlothii's (which was once a Homeria as you
suspected.) I'm not sure how to measure it since the tepals hang down so
you can't measure across but each tepal is about 3/4 of an inch (2cm.) All
my hybrids have the one long leaf (but not as long as Paul's plant.) That
one is huge and hasn't bloomed for me yet, but I planted it out so it could
still happen later. It is in my lotus bed.

How do I feel about all these genera being put into one? Taxonomists don't
seem to care very much these days about distinguishing plants by looking at
them. Moraea was already a very large genus without all these others being
added. I always thought Gynandriris looked like Moraea so that one was
easy. There is one Moraea I have grown, Moraea polyanthos, that looked more
like a purple Homeria to me so that eased adding Homeria. But if you see
something in the wild and you aren't sure what it is, it certainly was (is)
easier to say that it looks like a Homeria than a Moraea because that gives
you a starting point and is a way to explain it to others. I guess the
genus that bothered people the most that was included was Galaxia which is
often a very short plant with a rosette of leaves instead of one or two
very long narrow ones and just looks so different.

Mary Sue