Favorite Orange Flowered Bulbs--TOW
jennifer.hildebrand@att.net (Fri, 19 Mar 2004 19:21:54 PST)

Hi all,

OK, orange flowers. You’re going to get a lot more than 5, because orange, and shades of orange (peach, salmon) are my favorite color for flowers! It’s taken a while to compile the full list…

* Any orange (or orangish) Clivia
* Any orange Moraea (Homeria), including collina, comptonii (with yellow centers), and flaccida (pictures available at http://www.thebulbman.com/Catalog.html)
* Freesia – any orange one. I love the flower, but the scent is addictive. It smells to me like a combination of orange and vanilla scents, so it looks most natural to me in shades of orange. There’s a nice picture of an orange and yellow Freesia at http://community.webshots.com/photo/44710672/… – just a random, unnamed variety, I believe.
* Fritillaria aureomarginata. A beautiful flower, and variegated leaves to boot!
* Hippeastrum ‘Rilona’. This flower absolutely sparkled for me; it was the prettiest thing in my garden the last time that it bloomed. There’s a photo at http://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/40145-product.html, but while it’s a good photo, it doesn’t do the plant justice. It shimmered from several feet away.
* Ixia curta, a nice, bright orange, and Ixia frederickii, a deep, burnt-orange
* Littonia modesta is definitely a favorite. Rob Hamilton has a great photo on the wiki (http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/…), although it’s more yellow than I remember the flowers looking.
* Lycoris sanguinea, a deep orange. L. “Blushing Lady” is a beautiful salmon, really probably closer to pink, but it seems to have a deeper orange stripe down the center that gives the flower a slightly more orange (rather than pink) tone. There are several great photos of both flowers at http://www.bulbmeister.com/gallery/index.html)
* Sandersonia aurantiaca, which Mary Sue already mentioned, is a gorgeous shade of orange, and a different shape for a flower. See her plant, photographed by Bob, at http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/….
* Sparaxis elegans (form A, http://www.thebulbman.com/Catalog.html) is one of the prettiest flowers I’ve seen. Form B is quite nice, too, as is Sparaxis tricolor.
* Tritonias come in gorgeous shades of orange. T. crocata, deusta, and dubia are nice, rich shades of orange. http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/….
* Zantesdechia Cameo, Cherokee, Mozart, and Nepoli. I love callas – I’m going to carry one of these shades when I get married this summer. There’s a great page showing a lot of the different colors at http://www.cnb.nl/zantedeschia/catalogus/index.htm.
* Does Gloriosa superba count as orange or red? If it’s orange, it definite goes on the list.

Whew! That was exhausting – now it’s bedtime.
Jennifer