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!Moraea callista Goldblatt Search in The Plant ListSearch in IPNISearch in Australian Plant Name IndexSearch in NYBG Virtual HerbariumSearch in Muséum national d'Histoire naturelleSearch in Type Specimen Register of the U.S. National HerbariumSearch in Virtual Herbaria AustriaSearch in JSTOR Plant ScienceSearch in SEINetSearch in African Plants Database at Geneva Botanical GardenAfrican Plants, Senckenberg Photo GallerySearch in Flora do Brasil 2020Search in Reflora - Virtual HerbariumSearch in Living Collections Decrease font Increase font Restore font
 

Published In: Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 64: 255. 1977. (Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard.) Name publication detailView in BotanicusView in Biodiversity Heritage Library
 

Project Name Data (Last Modified On 2/10/2017)
Acceptance : Accepted
Taxon Profile     (Last Modified On 2/15/2017)
Description: Plants solitary, simple or rarely 1-branched, 300–700 mm high, with membraous cataphylls becoming fibrous above. Corm not known. Leaves 2, lower basal and larger, upper cauline, up to 7 mm wide, channelled, margins slightly thickened and hyaline, as long as, or slightly exceeding rhipidia. Rhipidia often inflexed; spathes green with dry upper margins, inner 40–60 mm long, outer ca. 1/2 as long. Flowers blue mauve with tepals fading to white distally; outer tepals 30–35 mm long, limbs 20–25 mm, fully reflexed when open; inner tepals somewhat smaller, also reflexed. Filaments up to 8 mm long, united in lower 5 mm; anthers 6 mm long. Ovary 5–7 mm long; style branches ca. 8 mm long, very broad and diverging, crests 5–7 mm. Capsules and seeds unknown. Flowering time: January to February in the west, May in the east.
Country: Tanzania
Distribution and ecology: restricted to southwestern and central eastern Tanzania; in mountain grassland, 1,800–3,000 m.
Diagnosis: Moraea callista stands apart from the other species in subg. Polyanthes because its large striking flower with blue and white, fully reflexed tepals are quite different from the usual small, uniformly blue flowers with spreading tepals of most other species. It occurs in two widely separated areas, high mountain grassland in the Njombe area in the southwestern part of Tanzania, and to the east in the Uluguru Mtns where only one gathering has been made, flowering at a much later date, in May, compared to January and February in the western part of its range. The species is still known from very few collections.

 
 


 

Specimens whose coordinates are enclosed in square brackets [ ] have been mapped to a standard reference mark based on political units.
 
 
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