Cemetery Iris

Iris albicans, the white cemetery iris, is a fairly plain, average-looking bearded iris, and its flowers, though a pristine white apart from the yellowish beard, cannot hold a candle to more intensely colored hybrids. So why bother to grow it? It’s the backstory that makes this plant interesting. I. albicans is reported to be sterile and is thought to be a natural hybrid of two species native to the Arabian peninsula. It is widely naturalized along the Mediterranean coast as far as Spain and Portugal and may have been cultivated, and propagated by division, for >1000 years. The story goes that the plants were carried from their original Arabian homeland during the Muslim conquests of Anatolia, north Africa and Spain, and they were traditionally planted at grave sites, a practice that continued among Christians when Spaniards brought the plants to the new world following the Reconquista.

So, that’s the story. It’s romantic and even plausible given what is known about the plant’s distribution, and more-or-less the same tale has been repeated in books and journals for the past century (see here for an early example in the Bulletin of the American Iris Society, October, 1925). There are a few holes in the narrative, though. As far as I can tell, there are no primary sources documenting the spread of I. albicans through the Muslim lands during the middle ages (not that we would expect there to be), and no one seems to know the species that were its putative parents.

But it’s a great story. I, for one, am going to assume it is true.

Physically, I. albicans is a fairly small bearded iris. Its gray-green foliage is more compact than the more modern hybrids that circulate among North Carolina gardeners, and the inflorescence is likewise short with stubby branches. The buds form very early in the year and are often damaged by freezing weather. Last year, they all froze just before opening. This year, we had generally mild weather in February and March, and I managed to see some flowers by covering the plants with buckets on several nights in late March when the temperature dipped below 28 F (-2.2 C). I think it’s at close to its northern limit in my garden, and the plants seem to be more commonly grown in the gulf coast states.

Six on Saturday #73 (April 1, 2023)

It’s been a while since I have had the time to put together a Six on Saturday post. Spring is well underway here in the North Carolina piedmont. The early Narcissus have long finished flowering, and only late-flowering clones like ‘Thalia’ and ‘Golden Bells’ are still in bloom. Azaleas are just getting started. The native pinxter flower, Rhododendron periclymenoides is in full bloom, and the buds are opening on Florida flame azalea (R. austrinum). My hardy Calanthe and Bletilla orchids were hit hard by a freeze after a prolonged frost-free spell, and many of their new growths were turned to mush. It remains to be seen how many flowers they’ll make this year.

Here are six plants from the greenhouse and garden that I haven’t featured before.

1. Rhododendron ‘Aravir’

‘Aravir’ is another of the modern vireya (tropical Rhododendron) hybrids. Its parentage is R. konori x (‘Pink Delight’ x jasminiflorum), which may explain its similarity to the Victorian ‘Princess Alexandra’ (R. ‘Princess Royal’ x jasminiflorum). The parentage of ‘Pink Delight’ is unknown*, but it is supposedly an old Veitch hybrid, so probably similar to ‘Princess Royal’. I got this plant as an unrooted cutting about 2 1/2 years ago, and this is the first time I have seen it flower. I am currently experiencing (hopefully temporary) post-COVID anosmia, so I can’t say much about its fragrance. I can barely detect a scent, which probably means that it is very strongly scented. Like all vireyas, this plant is not frost-hardy. I grow it in the greenhouse in winter and outdoors under shade cloth in summer.

This is one of a group of vireya hybrids with names drawn from the Chronicles of Narnia. ‘Aravir’ refers to the Narnian morning star.

*Update 12/22/2023: The late John Swisher, a Floridian vireya grower, suggested that ‘Pink Delight’ was identical to Rhododendron ‘Taylori’, a well known Veitch hybrid (Vireya Vine #3). If so, R. ‘Aravir’ is a great grandchild of R. ‘Princess Alexandra’ with several doses of R. jasminiflorum and R. javanicum in its background:

2. Columnea crassifolia

This beautiful epiphytic gesneriad is from Guatemala, so it is a greenhouse plant. The large hummingbird-pollinated flowers are similar to its relative C. microcalyx (syn. gloriosa), but while the stems of C. microcalyx hang limp or creep along a surface, those of C. crassifolia are rigid. This plant flowers most of the winter and on-and-off during the summer. Like R. ‘Aravir’, it goes outside under shade cloth once the danger of frost is past.

3. Taraxacum albidum (Japanese white dandelion)

When growing dandelions for chicken snacks and salad greens, it’s fun to try unusual varieties. Last year we flowered the pink dandelion (Taraxacum pseudoroseum), and this year white dandelions are getting started. Taraxacum pseudoroseum wasn’t very pink, but T. albidum is definitely a more pure white. Since dandelions can be persistent weeds, we keep them in pots and clip off inflorescences before the seeds are mature.

4. Camellia ‘Rosehill Red’

Not much to say about this; it’s a very nice Camellia japonica cultivar. I tend not to like double and semi-double flowers, but these ones aren’t too fussy looking. It is beside Camellia ‘Yuletide’ which flowers in early winter, so I get an extended shot of red color in that part of the garden.

5. Muscari armeniacum ‘Touch of Snow’

These little guys that I planted last autumn are a little difficult to find in the garden, but they’ll become more obvious as they start to form clumps. They make a nice change from the more typical purple grape hyacinths.

6. Hyacinthus ‘Woodstock’

I had a little trouble finding six flowers that I hadn’t featured before, so I’ll slip in these hyacinths which actually flowered a couple of weeks ago. Like the Muscari ‘Touch of Snow’, I planted them last autumn, so this was my first look at the flowers. My wife was the one who picked them out of the catalog, but I very much like the intense magenta color which darkens to purple at the base of the flower. Quite possibly my favorite Hyacinth now.

Jim at Garden Ruminations is the host of Six on Saturday. Head over there to see his Six for this week and find links to the blogs of other participants.

Queen Victoria’s slipper

Paphiopedilum victoria-regina

Subgenus Cochlopetalum of genus Paphiopedilum is a small group of tropical slipper orchids from Indonesia which are characterized by hairy, spirally twisted petals and a successive-flowering habit. All of the species, with the exception of a yellow form of P. primulinum, have pink pouches and greenish dorsal sepals, and they differ mainly in size, pattern on the dorsal sepal, and subtle variation in pouch shape. I have grown most of the species at one time or another, and P. victoria-regina, from Sumatra, is probably my favorite. It is a relatively large member of the group (P. primulinum is smallest), and I really like the dark stripes on the dorsal sepal which look like flames in some clones.

The strap-like foliage of P. victoria-regina can be plain green or have some tesselation as in this clone.

All members of this subgenus are relatively easy to grow under warm conditions, and they adapt well to greenhouse, light-garden, or windowsill cultivation. Their best feature is their flowering habit. Although the inflorescence only holds one or two flowers at a time, it continues to produce new buds for a very long time–up to two years for P. victoria-regina–so by the time an old inflorescence is senescent, a new growth has almost certainly matured and started flowering. The individual flowers are also quite long-lived. The flower in the background of the picture above opened in late December 2022, and it is still in good condition on February 11, 2023. These characteristics make the Cochlopetalum Paphs ideal for beginning orchid growers who have only a small collection and want to be sure of having at least one plant in flower all year round.

Update: by February 23, a third flower had opened while the first was still in good shape. It’s unusual to have this many flowers open at one time on a single inflorescence, and it typically happens when the inflorescence is young. Later, a new flower usually opens when the previous is fading.

Macleania pentaptera

Currently flowering in my greenhouse for the first time: Macleania pentaptera, another one of the neotropical epiphytic “blueberries” (a misonomer; this species, like M. smithiana, has white berries).

M. pentaptera is endemic to Ecuador, where it grows in primary rainforest at 150-2100 meters above sea level and is pollinated by hummingbirds. When I was researching this species before buying a plant, the lower limit of its altitude gave me hope that it might tolerate hot North Carolina summers. So far, that hope seems to have been borne out. The small rooted cutting that I purchased in 2020 has grown vigorously, with no evidence of damage during even the hottest weather. In that respect, it seems to very similar to the Macleania sp. aff. smithiana that I previously featured (see that post for more on the genus). At least four other Macleania species (M. coccoloboides, M. cordifolia, M. insignis, and M. rupestris) are also occasionally available from nurseries in the USA, but they are all cloud forest species and are unlikely to be heat tolerant. The one plant of M. cordifolia that I tried to grow did not survive even one summer. However, all of these species are so fantastic that I will almost certainly try again.

Six on Saturday #72 (December 10, 2022)

Last weekend was the annual Winter Silhouette Bonsai Show in Kannapolis, NC. I wanted to get a nice pot for the larger of my two Operculicarya decaryi and stock up on Marabou chocolate from the IKEA in Charlotte, so I drove over on Saturday. I did find a beautiful hand-made pot at a decent price, and the bonsai trees on display were well worth seeing. Three years on from my first visit, I have a little more knowledge about bonsai, and I think I have a better grasp of what I was actually seeing. This time, I paid close attention to the trees that were non-traditional species, as well as the tropical/subtropical species that might give me ideas for things I can grow in my greenhouse.

1. Brazilian Rain tree (Chloroleucon tortum)

This is a very common choice for tropical bonsai

2. Bougainvillea sp.

3. Pomegranate (Punica granatum)

A large part of bonsai design is creating the appearance of a mature tree in miniature. Here, the grower has deliberately broken the illusion by allowing a single full-sized fruit to remain on the tree. The effect is startling. The very broad trunk of this tree is oddly fissured, suggesting that it may have been built by binding together several small saplings or rooted cuttings and waiting for them to fuse as they grow.

4. Silverthorn (Eleagnus pungens)

Eleagnus pungens and Eleagnus umbellata are horrible invasive weeds in North Carolina woodlands. Would that they were all dug up and turned into beautiful bonsai like this specimen.

5. Japanese beautyberry (Callicarpa japonica)

Beautyberries are common garden shrubs in NC (See 4 and 4b here), but their relatively large leaves and long thin stems must make them difficult to train into bonsai. C. japonica has smaller leaves than our native C. americana, but I imagine this plant still looks rather odd when in leaf. When leafless and covered in berries it is very striking.

6. Buddhist pine (Podocarpus macrophyllus)

A subtropical species which gives the appearance of more cold hardy conifers in a tree that can be grown year-round in greenhouse or sunroom (though it would almost certainly appreciate a summer vacation outdoors)

Jim at Garden Ruminations is the new host of Six on Saturday. Head over there to see his Six for this week and find links to the blogs of other participants.