Sunday, July 22, 2012

GAZING AT GAZANIA

Why give it a wink?
Gazania rigens, native to South Africa, is drought tolerant, grows in poor soils, and can take full sun and lots of heat.
It's also very beautiful and the inner eyes are quite unusual
Gazania can also have silvery foliage or green foliage with silver hairs outlining the edges.
It's very low growing and would be great for a rock garden with lots of drainage.
For more great flowers, visit our host, Lisa, at Lisa's Chaos.
And now for a story:
When I was about 13, I learned from my English teacher that every plant had a scientific name. I was fascinated by this and set out to learn as many as possible. I enjoy the sounds of this botanical language very much. Gazania reminds me of some sort of Italian dessert, but of course it's not that at all. The flower is named after Theodore of Gaza from the 1300s. Rigens means rigid, perhaps due to the stiff outer ring surrounding the flower petals. These close up each night forcing the rest of the flower to close as well. I don't know of any other flower that does this each night.
You can see these rigid spikes ( or connate involucral bracts if you REALLY want to know) in the yellow background flowers in the photo below.

That's it for today.
Thanks for stopping by!
David/:0)



7 comments:

  1. Hi David,
    This is a beautiful flower and you have taken such beautiful photo's of it. It also sounds like it's a great plant for the hight temps and
    any hardships that other plants may not tolerate! Guess it wouldnt take our snow and freezing temps too well. Nice photo's..enjoy your week,
    ~Shirley

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  2. Great shot! I really like the composition and the details in the center are amazing. Beautiful flower!

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  3. Hi there - great pictures! One day I'd like to see these South African flowers on their native patch. I think it would be remarkable.

    Stewart M - Australia

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  4. Gazanias are lovely. They abound in Southern California where I am from, but don't do as well here in the Pacific Northwest. I do not have any, but I do admire them for their color.

    Yael from Home Garden Diggers

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  5. you have this macro-flower thing down! the photos thru-out your blog are exceptional...

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  6. by the way, I am your new fan - following you now....

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