Freesia Pictures: YELLOWFREESIABOUQUET.jpg

Freesia is a genus of herbaceous perennial flowering crops in the family Iridaceae, first referred to as a genus in 1866 by Chr. Fr. Echlon (1795-1868) and known as after German botanist and doctor Friedrich Freese (1794-1878). It really is local to the eastern side of southern Africa, from Kenya south to South Africa, most types being within Cape Provinces. Species of the past genus Anomatheca are actually included in Freesia. The plant life commonly known as "freesias", with fragrant funnel-shaped blooms, are cultivated hybrids of lots of Freesia kinds. Some other varieties are also produced as ornamental crops.

They can be herbaceous vegetation which grow from a conical corm 1-2.5 cm diameter, which transmits up a tuft of small 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 plants with six tepals. Many kinds have fragrant narrowly funnel-shaped flowers, although those previously positioned in the genus Anomatheca, such as F. laxa, have level flowers. Freesias are being used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera varieties including Large Yellow Underwing.

CULTIVATION AND USES

The vegetation 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 species and the pink- and yellow-flowered types of F. corymbosa. Modern tetraploid cultivars have bouquets which range from white to yellow, pink, red and blue-mauve. They are really mostly cultivated appropriately in the Netherlands by about 80 growers.[3] Freesias can be conveniently increased from seed. Because of the specific and attractive scent, they are often used in side lotions, shampoos, candles, etc.[citation needed], however, the plants are mainly utilized in wedding bouquets. They can be planted in the show up in USDA Hardiness Areas 9-10 (i.e. where the temperature does not show up below about -7 ?C (20 ?F)), and in the spring in Areas 4-8.

Freesia laxa (formerly called Lapeirousia laxa or Anomatheca cruenta) is one of the other types of the genus which is commonly cultivated. Smaller than the scented freesia cultivars, it includes flat rather than cup-shaped blossoms. Extensive 'forcing' of this bulb occurs in Half Moon Bay in California where several growers chill the light bulbs in proprietary solutions to satisfy cold dormancy which results in creation of buds inside a predicted volume of weeks - often 5 weeks at 55 ?F (13 ?C).

Herbaceous crops (in botanical use frequently simply herbs) are vegetation that have no prolonged woody stem above surface. Herbaceous plants may be annuals, biennials or perennials. Annual herbaceous plants expire completely by the end of the growing season or when they may have flowered and fruited, and they then expand again from seed. Herbaceous perennial and biennial vegetation may have stems that die at the end of the growing season, but parts of the plant make it through under or near the ground from season to season (for biennials, until the next growing season, when they bloom and perish). New development grows from living tissue left over on or under the bottom, including origins, a caudex (a thickened portion of the stem at ground level) or numerous kinds of underground stems, such as bulbs, corms, stolons, rhizomes and tubers. Examples of herbaceous biennials include carrot, parsnip and common ragwort; herbaceous perennials include potato, peony, hosta, mint, most ferns & most grasses. In comparison, non-herbaceous perennial vegetation are woody crops that have stems above surface that continue to be alive during the dormant season and increase shoots the next calendar year from the above-ground parts - included in these are trees, shrubs and vines.