What are the alternative names of Iris lactea? So that's what it can be called

Flowers & Gardening Jan 1, 1970 0 views

Iris lactea is also called malian, malan, malanhua, hanpu, lishi, licao, jucao, shishou, sanjian and majiu. The flower language of Iris lactea is "messenger of love". As a perennial herbaceous plant, Iris lactea has unique ecological and biological characteristics and value in use.

Alternative names of Iris lactea

Iris lactea, also called malian, malan, malanhua, hanpu, lishi, licao, jucao, shishou, sanjian and majiu. It is a perennial herbaceous rhizomatous plant belonging to the genus Iris in the family Iridaceae.

The uses and value of Iris lactea

Iris lactea is salt-alkali tolerant and trampling tolerant, with a well-developed root system. It grows in wasteland, along roadsides, in mountain slopes and grasslands, and in saline-alkali meadows. It can be used for soil and water conservation, the improvement of saline-alkali land and industrial wasteland, and as ground cover, edging or specimen planting in landscaping.

The whole plant can be used as medicine, with the effects of clearing heat, stopping bleeding and detoxifying.

The leaves can be used as binding and straw-weaving material, and it is rather widely distributed in grassland areas.

The flower language and legends of Iris lactea

The flower language of Iris lactea is: lover from a past life, messenger of love.

Iris lactea is commonly known as malianhua or malanhua, and is also called Zhu Yingtai flower. In legend, it is the flower transformed from Zhu Yingtai, who could not stay together with Liang Shanbo. Its shape resembles a butterfly, and it is a messenger that conveys love. The existence of Iris lactea is full of legend and tragic heroism.

To this day, Greeks often plant this flower in cemeteries, that is, in the hope that the soul of a person after death can be entrusted to Iris to bring back to heaven.

Morphological characteristics of Iris lactea

Iris lactea is a perennial densely tufted herb.

The rhizome is stout, woody, slanting, and externally covered with a large amount of dense, red-purple, broken remnants of old leaf sheaths and hair-like fibers; the fibrous roots are thick and long, yellow-white, and sparsely branched. The leaves are basal, tough, gray-green, linear or narrowly sword-shaped, about 50 cm long and 4-6 mm wide, with an acuminate apex and a sheath-like base tinged with red-purple, without an obvious midvein.

The flowering stem is smooth, 3-10 cm tall; the bracts number 3-5, herbaceous, green, with white edges, lanceolate, 4.5-10 cm long and 0.8-1.6 cm wide, with an acuminate or long-acuminate apex, enclosing 2-4 flowers; the flowers are blue, 5-6 cm in diameter; the pedicels are 4-7 cm long; the perianth tube is very short, about 3 mm long, the outer perianth segments are oblanceolate, 4.5-6.5 cm long and 0.8-1.2 cm wide, with an obtuse or acute apex and a wedge-shaped claw, the inner perianth segments are narrowly oblanceolate, 4.2-4.5 cm long and 5-7 mm wide, with a narrowly wedge-shaped claw; the stamens are 2.5-3.2 cm long, the anthers yellow, the filaments white; the ovary is spindle-shaped, 3-4.5 cm long.

The capsule is long-elliptic and columnar, 4-6 cm long and 1-1.4 cm in diameter, with 6 obvious ribs and a short beak at the apex; the seeds are irregularly polyhedral, brown, slightly glossy. The flowering period is May-June, and the fruiting period is June-September.

Growth habits of Iris lactea

Iris lactea has no strict soil requirements. As long as there is a certain layer of soil, it can grow normally on various types of soil. It can withstand an extreme low temperature of -30°C and can also resist a high temperature of 40°C. In northern regions, it can overwinter and pass the summer normally.

Its roots and leaves have drought-resistant structures, and generally it only needs watering 2-3 times a year to grow normally, flower and set seed.

It is extremely salt-alkali tolerant. Seeds can germinate normally under a salt content of 0.4%, and plants can grow and develop normally under a salt content of 0.5% and a pH value below 8.8.

It has extremely strong resistance to pests, diseases and rodent damage. Generally, Iris lactea seeds or vegetation never suffer from pests, diseases or rodent damage, and when mixed with other vegetation, disasters rarely occur either. However, under dry, high-temperature, barren and harsh environmental conditions, the aboveground growth of Iris lactea will decrease, while the root system will become more developed to ensure its normal survival in adverse environments.

Origin and distribution of Iris lactea

Iris lactea is native to Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong, Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hubei, Hunan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Sichuan and Tibet, China.

It grows in wasteland, roadsides and hillside grasslands, especially in overgrazed saline-alkalinized grasslands. It is also found in Korea, the former Soviet Union and India.

Iris lactea has an extremely wide natural distribution, a well-developed root system, extremely strong resistance and adaptability, and salt-alkali tolerance. These characteristics determine that it is very suitable for soil and water conservation and the greening and improvement of saline-alkali land in the dry-climate and desertified-soil areas of northern China.