Freesia is a genus of herbaceous perennial flowering plant life in the family Iridaceae, first described as a genus in 1866 by Chr. Fr. Echlon (1795-1868) and known as after German botanist and doctor Friedrich Freese (1794-1878). It is local to the eastern area of southern Africa, from Kenya south to South Africa, most species being within Cape Provinces. Species of the former genus Anomatheca are now contained in Freesia. The plants commonly known as "freesias", with fragrant funnel-shaped bouquets, are cultivated hybrids of a number of Freesia species. Some other varieties are also grown as ornamental crops.
They are simply herbaceous vegetation which develop from a conical corm 1-2.5 cm size, which sends up a tuft of thin leaves 10-30 cm long, and a sparsely branched stem 10-40 cm large bearing a few leaves and a loose one-sided spike of flowers with six tepals. Many varieties have fragrant narrowly funnel-shaped blooms, although those previously positioned in the genus Anomatheca, such as F. laxa, have flat flowers. Freesias are used as food crops by the larvae of some Lepidoptera types including Large Yellow Underwing.
CULTIVATION AND USES
The plant life usually called "freesias" derive from crosses manufactured in the 19th hundred years between F. refracta and F. leichtlinii. Numerous cultivars have been bred from these varieties and the pink- and yellow-flowered forms of F. corymbosa. Modern tetraploid cultivars have bouquets ranging from white to yellowish, green, red and blue-mauve. They can be mostly cultivated appropriately in the Netherlands by about 80 growers.[3] Freesias can be easily increased from seed. Because of their specific and satisfying scent, they are generally used in hand ointments, shampoos, candles, etc.[citation needed], however, the blossoms are mainly used in wedding bouquets. They could be planted in the fall season in USDA Hardiness Areas 9-10 (i.e. where the temperature does not fall season below about -7 ?C (20 ?F)), and in the springtime in Areas 4-8.
Freesia laxa (previously called Lapeirousia laxa or Anomatheca cruenta) is one of the other kinds of the genus which is often cultivated. Smaller than the scented freesia cultivars, it offers flat rather than cup-shaped flowers. Extensive 'forcing' of this bulb occurs in Half Moon Bay in California where several growers chill the bulbs in proprietary solutions to satisfy cold dormancy which results in formation of buds within a predicted range of weeks - often 5 weeks at 55 ?F (13 ?C).
Herbaceous plant life (in botanical use frequently simply natural remedies) are plant life that have no persistent woody stem above ground. Herbaceous plant life may be annuals, biennials or perennials. Total annual herbaceous plants expire completely by the end of the growing season or when they have flowered and fruited, plus they then increase again from seed. Herbaceous perennial and biennial plant life may have stems that die at the end of the growing season, but parts of the plant make it through under or near the bottom from season to season (for biennials, before next growing season, when they flower and die). New expansion grows from living tissues remaining on or under the bottom, including origins, a caudex (a thickened portion of the stem at walk out) or numerous kinds of underground stems, such as lights, corms, stolons, rhizomes and tubers. Examples of herbaceous biennials include carrot, parsnip and common ragwort; herbaceous perennials include potato, peony, hosta, mint, most ferns and most grasses. By contrast, non-herbaceous perennial plant life are woody vegetation which have stems above ground that remain alive through the dormant season and increase shoots another 12 months from the above-ground parts - included in these are trees, shrubs and vines.