• Moraea aristata has beautiful markings: each of its three large white petals has a dark metallic blue and green spot that looks like the eye on a peacock’s tail feather.
• Each flower lasts for only about three days during spring.
• It is a geophyte; its leaves grow in winter and die back in summer.

• Moraea aristata is one of six different Peacock Moraeas. All six species are threatened with extinction because most of their natural habitat (Renosterveld) has been replaced by agriculture and housing.
• Moraea aristata is Critically Endangered. It is one of the rarest plants in nature.
• It used to grow on shale soils from the slopes of Devil's Peak to Rondebosch, but its habitat was destroyed by urban development.
• Today only one natural population survives. It grows in an area of less than 50 m² in the grounds of the South African Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town. All the plants have been grown from about five parent plants.

• In the 1980s, only about 20 plants survived at the Observatory. Seeds were collected and propagated at a government nursery and the plants were returned to the Observatory.
• For the past 25 years, women living at the Observatory (including the wives of the present and previous Directors of the Observatory) have looked after the plants.
• Although Moraea aristata is Critically Endangered in the wild, it is a popular garden plant in many countries. This is because explorers in the 1700s collected these plants, took them back to Europe and started growing them in gardens for their beautiful flowers.
• Moraea aristata is easy to grow. In some parts of the world it has even become an invasive weed!

• Vulnerable:
  • Aristea lugens
  • Babiana rubrocynaea
  • Disa draconis
  • Disa lugens
• Endangered:
  • Pterygodium cruciferum
• Critically Endangered:
  • Moraea elsiae
  • Lachenalia arbuthnotiae
  • Watsonia strictiflora

(Move your mouse over each name to see a photograph)

Find these species on the Poster in Module 1