Is Iris lactea easy to grow?

Flowers & Gardening Jan 1, 1970 0 views

Iris lactea is also known as malian, malan, malan flower, 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 uses.

Alternative names of Iris lactea

Iris lactea, also known as malian, malan, malan flower, 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 on wasteland, roadsides, hillside grasslands, and 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 effects of clearing heat, stopping bleeding, and detoxifying.

The leaves can be used as binding and straw-weaving material, and it is fairly 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 malian flower or malan flower, and is also called Zhu Yingtai flower. In legend, Iris lactea 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, hoping that the soul of the deceased 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 thick and strong, woody, slanting, and covered on the outside with a large amount of dense, broken red-purple residual leaf sheaths from old leaves 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 acuminate apex and sheathing base, tinged with red-purple, and without an obvious midvein.

The flower stem is smooth, 3-10 cm tall; bracts 3-5, herbaceous, green, with white margins, lanceolate, 4.5-10 cm long and 0.8-1.6 cm wide, apex acuminate or long acuminate, containing 2-4 flowers; flowers blue, 5-6 cm in diameter; pedicels 4-7 cm long; perianth tube very short, about 3 mm long, outer perianth segments oblanceolate, 4.5-6.5 cm long and 0.8-1.2 cm wide, apex obtuse or acute, claw wedge-shaped, inner perianth segments narrowly oblanceolate, 4.2-4.5 cm long and 5-7 mm wide, claw narrowly wedge-shaped; stamens 2.5-3.2 cm long, anthers yellow, filaments white; ovary fusiform, 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; seeds are irregular polyhedra, 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 in various types of soil. It can withstand extreme low temperatures of -30°C and can also resist high temperatures of 40°C. In northern regions, it can overwinter and pass the summer normally.

Its roots and leaves have drought-resistant structures. Generally, watering only 2-3 times per year is enough for it to grow normally and bloom and set seed.

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

It has extremely strong resistance to diseases, insects, and rodents. Generally, Iris lactea seeds or vegetation never suffer from disease, insect, or rodent damage, and when mixed with other vegetation, disasters rarely occur. 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.

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 Xizang in China.

It grows in wasteland, roadsides, and hillside grasslands, especially abundantly on overgrazed salinized 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 soil-desertified areas of northern China.