Description:

• Deciduous perennials
• Rootstock a corm, usually replaced annually, rooting from apical bud, tunics persistent, variable in texture, mostly of coarse reticulate fibres, sometimes tunics initially more or less woody
• Stem usually aerial, terete, simple or branched, sometimes subterranean
• Leaves several to few, lower 1 or 2 cataphylls, these membranous, green or brown above ground or sometimes reticulate; foliage leaves usually bifacial and channelled, without a midrib, margins sometimes inrolled, or undulate to crisped, occasionally terete, then straight, twisted or coiled, sometimes only lowermost with a blade, remaining short and entirely sheathing
• Inflorescences rhipidia, terminal on branches, rarely apically crowded on short to vestigial branches; spathes usually firm to coriaceous, inner exceeding outer and both tightly sheathing, acute or attenuate, rarely truncate and outer recurving above
• Flowers actinomorphic, mostly ± Iris-like, fugaceous or lasting up to 3 days, often shades of blue or yellow, also other colours, tepals clawed, usually only outer with nectar guides, sometimes sweetly or unpleasantly scented, often producing nectar from perigonal nectaries at tepal bases
• Tepals free, united in a short tube in a few species, claws ascending to erect, usually long, sometimes short and appressed to filament column, limbs spreading to reflexed, sometimes those of inner tepals erect, rarely inner tepals reduced, then tricuspidate, filiform, hair-like or 0
• Stamens: filaments usually united below, or entirely, rarely free, occasionally puberulent below; anthers usually appressed to style branches, sometimes concealed by claws of outer tepals, prominent when style branches narrow or reduced
• Ovary usually pedicellate, occasionally sessile, exserted or included in spathes, extending upward as a hollow tube in some species
• Style filiform, usually enclosed by filament column and dividing shortly beyond it, branches usually flattened and petaloid, terminating in paired petaloid crests, stigma a transverse lobe on abaxial surface at base of crests, terminal when style branches narrow or filiform, rarely style branches divided to base into paired filiform arms
• Capsules ovoid to oblong, apex truncate or shortly beaked, coriaceous to submembranous, usually exserted, occasionally included
• Seeds angular to fusiform, globose or compressed and discoid, variously ruminate to foveate, lineolate or more or less smooth, matte, surface usually colliculate or ocellate
• x = 10 (9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4) (polyploidy)

Classification Notes:

• Resembling Iris in many ways, Moraea is not immediately related to this northern hemisphere genus, but is more closely related to Dietes and Ferraria
• All four genera have unusual, flattened and petaloid style branches with an abaxial transverse stigma lobe and paired terminal crests
• Moraea and Ferraria differ from Iris and Dietes in having a corm, and Moraea has a bifacial leaf
• The genus is diverse and five subgenera are currently recognised
• The remaining southern Africa genera of Iridoideae that have corms and bifacial leaves have been found to be nested within Moraea and are now included within that genus
• A frequent floral specialisation in Moraea is for the inner and outer tepals to become nearly equal with the tepals of both whorls bearing nectar guides
• In these species the filaments are often fused entirely and style branches and crests are reduced in size, and are sometimes filiform
• Such flowers defined Galaxia, Hexaglottis and Homeria, the former in addition being acaulescent
• Barnardiella and Gynandriris were defined by an ovary with a sterile tubular extension and subsessile flower

Nomenclature:

• Moraea Mill.
  • Miller: 159 (1758)
  • Goldblatt: 1 (1986)
  • Goldblatt & Manning: 268 (1995)
• Vieusseuxia D.Delaroche
  • Delaroche: 31 (1766)
• Galaxia Thunb.
  • Thunberg: 50 (1782)
  • Goldblatt: 396 (1979b)
  • Goldblatt: 1082 (1984b)
• Phaianthes Raf.
  • Rafinesque: 30 (1836)
• Plantia Herb.
  • Herbert: 89 (1844)
• Hymenostigma Hochst.
  • Hochstetter: 24 (1844)
• Gynandriris Parl.
  • Parlatore: 49 (1854)
  • Goldblatt: 247 (1980b)
• Helixyra Salisb. ex N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 348 (1929)
• Rheome Goldblatt
  • Goldblatt: 92 (1980a)
• Barnardiella Goldblatt: 312 (1976)
• Homeria Vent.
  • Ventenat: 2 (1808)
  • Goldblatt: 93 (1980a)
  • Goldblatt431 (1981)
• Hexaglottis Vent.
  • Ventenat: 3 (1808)
  • Lewis: 219 (1959)
  • Goldblatt: 552 (1987)
• Roggeveldia Goldblatt
  • Goldblatt: 840 (1979a)
• Sessilistigma Goldblatt
  • Goldblatt: 156 (1984a)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 200, throughout sub-Saharan Africa, with 2 in the Mediterranean and Middle East
• Southern Africa: Species ± 180, concentrated in the Western Cape, occurring in a variety of open habitats, never in forests

Additional Notes:

• Pollination in Moraea is diverse
• The ancestral condition appears to be pollination by long-tongued bees foraging for nectar
• Several Western Cape species are pollinated by monkey beetles (Scarabaeidae), and forms of M. lurida have foetid-smelling flowers and are pollinated by carrion flies (Calliphoridae)
• Species that have prominently displayed anthers are pollinated by bees foraging for pollen