Moraea elegans Seeds
The striking yellow and orange flowers with variable bold markings, and its extreme ease of cultivation make this elegant spring-flowering species an essential member of any collection of Cape geophytes.
Description
Moraea elegans is a winter-growing, summer-dormant geophyte (a plant that grows from subterranean buds produced on specialized storage organs). In M. elegans the storage organ is a well-developed corm that is annually replaced and consists of a short, solid, vertical stem surrounded by strong outer corm tunics. The mature plant grows up to 0.35 m high and produces a single long, linear, greenish grey basal leaf up to 0.5 m long.
The large, shallowly cup-shaped flowers are rather variable in their colour combinations and have oblong, bright orange or yellow outer tepals, each with a prominent bright green or brownish green, spade-like marking in the centre or towards the base, and bright yellow, narrower, oblong inner tepals that are usually unmarked. The flowers are scented and produced in succession, each one lasting three days.
Conservation status
Moraea elegans is an endangered species due to ploughing of its fertile natural habitat for the purposes of winter cereal crops, especially wheat; currently it survives in just a few scattered remnant populations.
Distribution and habitat
Moraea elegans has an extremely limited distribution in renosterveld vegetation in the southwestern part of the Western Cape, extending from Caledon to Napier. It grows in colonies on lower hill slopes and flats in seasonally moist, heavy clay soil.
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