Click on to this small flower icon to view an image of Ixia capillaris.
Also, have a look at Ixia maculata on Larry Davidsons page "http://www.larrydavison.com/bulbs/source..."
I hope you've enjoyed my previous articles on Insecticides and home-made sprays.
It gives me great pleasure now, to introduce you to my very favourite species of all bulbs in all of the world - the Ixia. .
I guess you have a favourite bulb too and enjoy finding out all about your favourite bulbs as much as I have with my Ixia over the past years. Looking into the history of bulbs and plants is often very interesting and will bring to light many of the original problems experienced in identifying them and putting them into the right families.
Many of the early plant collectors and botanists caused confusion with mis-identification of species and by putting them into the wrong genus and families. This has been so with the Ixia
Let's start off by having a look at the history of the Ixia species, which is from South Africa:
Ixia (IRIDACEAE) From the Greek ixos, mistletoe (viscum), birdlime; referring to the viscous sap.
Plants with a corm covered with fibrous tunics. Leaves are in two erect ranks, deciduous. Inflorescence is simple or branched in a dense or loose spike. Stems are thin and wiry. The flowers have a long or short perianth tube and more or less equal spreading segments. Fruit is a capsule of small, brown, angled seeds.
The name Ixia is derived from an old Greek name for a plant noted for the variability of its coloring. Several species are commonly known in South Africa as klossies or kalossies, and a few as koring-blommetjies
In 1962 a revision was done by G. J. Lewis in the Journal of South African Botany and in his introduction he states: " This attractive genus of the Iridaceae, endemic to the Cape Province, was introduced into gardens in England and Europe two hundred or more years ago, and the number of illustrations of various species which appeared in botanical and horticultural works of the second half of the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth centuries give evidence of the popularity of these plants during that period"
"Unfortunately, as happened in most genera of the South African Iridaceae, several of the better known species soon became involved in mis-identifications and considerable confusion, much of which has persisted to this day." (1962)
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