Tigridia

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Tigridia is a genus usually quoted as having 30-35 species though I have a list of over 80 names. Most are from Mexico and C. America with outlying species in Peru and Chile. Four plants previously called Rigidella are now included in Tigridia. Few are in cultivation, with the exception of the Mexican R. pavonia which has been cultivated for perhaps a thousand years.

They grow from a tunicated bulb (not a corm) with a fan of pleated leaves below a spike of amazing flowers. In some species the flowers face up, in others they nod. They are all fugacious, each bloom lasts but a day, however most produce a succession.

Most are summer-growing and winter-dormant, adapted to a dry winter rest. This makes them ideal for cultivation though they must be totally dry when dormant. Climatically they range from alpine to maquis, from marsh to woodland.

They like a well-drained medium and lots of feeding will ensure that they make more abundant growth, increase and flowers. Most of the species in cultivation seem to be cold hardy though I have not grown the semi-tropical species.

Tigridia vanhouttei

It is a stunner with the most amazing colours combined into its short-lived flowers. There are 3 large petals separated by 3 small spotted ones. The outers are primrose yellow with purple lines and veins and a deep purple base. The inners are cream with purple veins.

The flowers open fully in sun to as much as 15cm across, face-up so you can appreciate its full beauty. Each lasts but a day but they appear from June to late Autumn usually with several borne sequentially on each 40-70cm tall stem, so it is not a one-trick-pony.

Best in pots where you can control watering. They will take chilling and frosting, short of being actually being frozen through (which few things tolerate). Fertile, loam-based compost with good drainage. Feed at every opportunity to build size and aid flowering. Start in late spring for flowers the same summer and beyond, but should be dried when growth yellows in autumn and kept dry over winter.

Widely distributed in Mexico, but rare at all of its localities which are in mountainous scrubby forest at elevations of 2200-2900m.


Tigridia vanhoutteirigvanvan	£9.50
flowering sized cultivated, propagated corms Large view