Tigridia meleagris

Tigridia meleagris (Lindl.) G.Nicholson, Ill. Dict. Gard. 4: 39 (1887).

Lindley originally named this as Hydrotaenia meleagris in Edwards Botanical Register, Table 39, 1842, with the following note: "A full account of this very rare and curious plant is given in the volume of this work for 1838 ; the acompanying figure will complete its illustration. It was taken from a plant which flowered last summer in the garden of the Horticultural Society.

Although in reality allied very closely to the genus Sisyrinchium it has quite a different habit, imitating as it were the Fritillaria in the Amaryllidaceous order. Its appearance is by no means attractive, but the interior of the flower, when carefully examined, will be found to exhibit beauties of no common kind. The curious watery band, which glitters as if covered with dew, or as if constructed out of broken rock crystal, is one of the most curious objects I know. The stigmata too are extremely remarkable ; each divides into two arms, which are rolled up as if forming a gutter, with a dense mass of bright papillae at the end, and a single tooth on the inner edge ; between the arms stands a short mucro which is free from glands, and forms a minute horn. It is by the union of 3 such stigmata that the nine lobes of the style are produced.

Fig 1 presents a petal from within ; 2 is a view of the column, and 3. of the style and stigmata apart

Hydrotaenia is a greenhouse bulb of which the cultivation is extremely simple. The pots in which it is kept ought to recieve no water after the leaves have withered in autumn, until they begin to grow again in spring. A dry shelf in the greenhouse is an excellent place to keep it during the winter. When it commences its growth it ought then to be placed in a light situation, and to be watered gentlv at first and then freely afterwards, when it will soon form its leaves and flowers. It succeeds perfectly in equal parts of loam, leaf-mould and sand, and is multiplied by offsets or seeds.

* Is named from Iwp water, and raivta a band, in allusion to the bar of shining water-like tissue which is placed on the petals in the form of two sides of a triangle."

-- BobPries - 2014-03-21