More photos on the wiki
Mary Sue Ittner (Sat, 20 Mar 2004 07:48:45 PST)

Dear Lee,

I enjoyed looking at your pictures. You can never see too many variants of
Moraea villosa in my mind. I just added this sentence to the wiki. "It can
be purple, lilac, sometimes pink or orange or even cream or white with
yellow nectar guides on the outer tepals outlined in broad bands of dark
color." So I think your unknown is a villosa. I suppose a lot of the ones
pictured on our page could be hybrids too. 'Zoe' probably is. I've turned
that one around successfully (purchased from Bill Dijk in Pasadena) and it
is blooming right now and looking great! I don't know anyone who grows that
orange one pictured in the Moraea book, but it would make anyone's favorite
list I'd think.

I also added a darker purple villosa to the wiki we saw at Gordon
Summerfield's in South Africa. Bob took one picture head on and I thought
at first it was a different version of M. loubseri, but it had this yellow
band so that didn't seem right and then I saw another picture that made it
clear what it was.

I also added a picture of M. lugubris we saw at Gordon's if anyone wants to
see what it looks like.

I am finding Moraea aristata is naturalizing in my garden. It is appearing
in all sorts of spots. I had a conversation with Mary Stobie in South
Africa about her efforts to protect this species, only now found in South
Africa on the Observatory grounds. She couldn't plant any other Moraeas
there so as not to disturb the gene pool. So far the ones appearing in my
garden all look the same, but I suppose that could change.

I didn't find your new Sprekelia on the Sprekelia page so suspect you
forgot to add it.

Mary Sue