Tropical plant’s blooms don’t last long | Culture | Summerville Journal Scene

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Tropical plant’s blooms don’t last long

Published Tuesday, June 23, 2009 12:51 PM

Summerville Journal Scene ®

Photo by Gerald Brazell

The individual flowers each last but a day.

Walking in the morning garden — it's a good thing to do, while it's quiet and still, and still cool. These last several days around here have brought strong afternoon and evening thunderstorms, with pouring rains, and in the morning, the remains of the storm seem to remain in the heavy air, with shreds of fog.

There's a hedge of privet in our neighbors' yard, in bloom, and that blends with our gardenia and sweet-bay tree's blossoms to form a pepperily sweet aroma in the morning, when everything's still damp, and calm. Drowsy thrashers will start to roust about in the morning, croaking, and of course, Mr. and Mrs. Mockingbird both get up early to find breakfast for their little ones — their second brood for us this summer! — hidden away in a protective yaupon holly. Some of the garden flowers, too, seem to be waking up: although most garden flowers remain open 24 hours a day, some will quietly close as it gets dark, ready to open when the sun comes up.

(Of course, there are some garden plants whose flowers have a kind of night shift, OPENING in the darkness, and closing in the morning.)

Our Mystery Plant is a beautiful thing on a sunny morning. Its flamboyant flowers last only one day, so you can see the new ones for the day, lending a sort of tropical flavor to your backyard. It's a plant with a dozen or so close relatives from Central America, where they like damp forests, and considerable shade. All of the species have a tuft of bright green, sword — like leaves, much like an iris. The species featured here will show off a number of slender leaf-like stalks, and this is where the flowers come from. At the tip of one of these leaf-like branches, a cluster of flowers will be produced. The individual flowers each last but a day...and their combined weight will cause their supportive steam to arch and lean down to the ground. Where the stem contacts soil, roots will ultimately form, giving rise to a new plant, eventually. This is particularly useful for gardeners who are fond of propagating things. It's easy to divide up one of these plants in this way, and thus sharing "starts" with friends. As you might expect, this plant's architecture and tendency to sprawl makes it perfect for a hanging basket, hung outside all summer long, until it starts cooling off.

Back to the flowers, though. Each one sports three big floppy sepals, each one bright white, sometimes with a patch of purple or red down at the bottom. The petals are showy, too: bright blue or purple, and striped with red on their central portions. There will be three whitish styles right in the middle, and underneath each one of them will be a single stamen.

This plant is fairly commonly grown in much of the deep south, but we at the Herbarium here still get plenty of requests each summer as to its identity.

Answer: “Walking iris," "Apostle plant," Neomarica gracilis

John Nelson is the curator of the Herbarium in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of South Carolina. As a public service, the Herbarium offers free plant identifications. For more information, visit www.herbarium.org or call 803-777-8196.

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