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A moisture loving species from South Africa. This plant has rather tatty foliage due to a shortage of water, it usually has lush pleated
leaves. Large yellow flowers in late summer. It also has the most amazing bright red roots, but they are only visible if it is grown in a pot. Although there were plenty of seedlings around the place, the string of bad winters seems to have finished them off. Time to start again because it is a fun and easy thing to have in the garden (2014). Erick Gardner wrote on facebook (26.10.2025): "Beneath those dramatic inflorescences lies a secret: the roots are rich in a crimson pigment called wacchendorfin, once used as a natural dye. The genus was named after the 18th-century Dutch botanist Evert Jacob van Wachendorf, who studied plants for their medicinal and pigment properties. The red roots were prized in early Cape settlements for producing reddish-brown dyes - a reminder that even ornamental plants often carry a practical past beneath their beauty." Plantzafrica says: Wachendorfia thyrsiflora occurs in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape, from the Olifants River Valley between Clanwilliam and Citrusdal, south to the Cape Peninsula, inland as far as the Franschhoek Mountains, and along the south coast as far east as Humansdorp, where it grows only in permanent marshes, seepages and streams from 5 to 1200 m above sea level. The Haemodoraceae or bloodwort family gets its rather alarming name from the red cell-sap found in the roots which colours the rootstock red (haima is Greek for blood and dôran means gift; wort is old English for a plant; Haemodorum is the Australian genus on which this family is based). |
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| 30th April 2008 | ||
