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Oncocyclusiris

The most spectacular Section of  Iris - the different species might look very different while other are hardly to tell apart from an other - the size of the plants may vary from just a few centimeters in the smaller species up to one meter for the larger ones. Many species have very large flowers.

Unfortunatly most of those species do not belong to the easy garden plants and require specific conditions. I started to grow species of this section several years ago when a german friend gave me some plants - my goal is to build up fertile groups (by seeds) of a few species and help to maintain them in cultivation as many species are endangered in their natural habitats.

In my experience it is much better to grow this species from seed than to buy (expensive) Rhizomes - seedlings are much easier to establish and sane. Rhizomes might be digged out in nature. It would be a very sad if those should extint because someone wants to enjoy their beauty in the garden. 

Growing Oncos from seed can take time as they rarly germinate the first year. There are differnt ways to let germinate seeds faster, but also the risk to loose them is also higher. Actually I returned to natural germination.  

 

Here Examples for Plantlets in Embryo Culture and Forced Germination

Natural germinated plants

Species

Here some cultivated species

Iris acutiloba ssp. lineolata

Iris acutiloba lineolata

Small species of Iran and Armenia

Iris atropurpurea

Iris atropurpurea - a specie from the coastal plains in Israel

Iris barnumae

Iris camillae

Iris camillae

A small steppe species of Azerbaijan and Armenia

Iris damascena

Iris damascena - a species from Syria

Iris gatesii

Iris gatesii - from Turkey and Irak

Iris haynei

Iris haynei - a species from Israel

Iris iberica ssp. elegantissima

Iris iberica ssp. lycotis

Iris kirkwoodii

Iris kirkwoodii ssp. calcarea

Iris lortetii

Iris mariae

Iris mariae - a species from southern Israel

Iris nectarifera

Iris nectarifera from Turkey

Iris nigricans

Iris paradoxa

Iris paradoxa choshab