Freesia Pictures: Freesia refracta flowers

$Freesia refracta flowers$

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 called after German botanist and doctor Friedrich Freese (1794-1878). It really is indigenous to the eastern area of southern Africa, from Kenya south to South Africa, most species being found in Cape Provinces. Types of the past genus Anomatheca are actually included in Freesia. The plants commonly known as "freesias", with fragrant funnel-shaped blossoms, are cultivated hybrids of a number of Freesia kinds. Some other varieties are also expanded as ornamental vegetation.

They are simply herbaceous plants which develop from a conical corm 1-2.5 cm diameter, which delivers up a tuft of thin leaves 10-30 cm long, and a sparsely branched stem 10-40 cm high bearing a few leaves and a loose one-sided spike of blossoms with six tepals. Many species have fragrant narrowly funnel-shaped blossoms, although those previously positioned in the genus Anomatheca, such as F. laxa, have even flowers. Freesias are used as food vegetation by the larvae of some Lepidoptera kinds including Large Yellow Underwing.

CULTIVATION AND USES

The plants usually called "freesias" are derived from crosses made in the 19th century between F. refracta and F. leichtlinii. Numerous cultivars have been bred from these types and the green- and yellow-flowered types of F. corymbosa. Modern tetraploid cultivars have plants ranging from white to yellow, red, red and blue-mauve. They are really mostly cultivated appropriately in holland by about 80 growers.[3] Freesias can be immediately increased from seed. Because of their specific and pleasing scent, they are often used in palm lotions, shampoos, candles, etc.[citation needed], however, the blossoms are mainly used in wedding bouquets. They can be planted in the fall season in USDA Hardiness Zones 9-10 (i.e. where in fact the temperature does not fall season below about -7 ?C (20 ?F)), and in the planting season in Zones 4-8.

Freesia laxa (previously called Lapeirousia laxa or Anomatheca cruenta) is one of the other kinds of the genus which is commonly cultivated. Smaller than the scented freesia cultivars, it includes flat alternatively than cup-shaped flowers. Extensive 'forcing' of this bulb occurs in Half Moon Bay in California where several growers chill the lights in proprietary solutions to satisfy chilly dormancy which results in formation of buds inside a predicted range of weeks - often 5 weeks at 55 ?F (13 ?C).

Herbaceous vegetation (in botanical use frequently simply herbs) are plant life that contain no continual woody stem above surface. Herbaceous crops may be annuals, biennials or perennials. Annual herbaceous plants expire completely at the end of the growing season or when they have flowered and fruited, plus they then grow again from seed. Herbaceous perennial and biennial vegetation may have stems that die by the end of the growing season, but elements of the plant make it through under or near to the ground from season to season (for biennials, before next growing season, when they rose and expire). New progress grows from living tissue remaining on or under the ground, including root base, a caudex (a thickened part of the stem at walk out) or numerous kinds of underground stems, such as bulbs, corms, stolons, rhizomes and tubers. Types of herbaceous biennials include carrot, parsnip and common ragwort; herbaceous perennials include potato, peony, hosta, mint, most ferns & most grasses. By contrast, non-herbaceous perennial plant life are woody vegetation that have stems above earth that stay alive during the dormant season and expand shoots another season from the above-ground parts - these include trees and shrubs, shrubs and vines.