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A pretty and distinctive small species. Flowers in June, at the beginning of the Watsonia
season. Benefits from a moist soil during growth, but well drained during winter. Occurs in the south and south west Cape on rich, heavy soils prone to waterlogging in spring. Although it appears quite often in bulb catalogues I don't find it succeeds here. It may flower in the first year but slowly slips away. I rarely see it in other gardens and when I do it has always been recently planted. It hasn't been any better in a pot in the greenhouse. I think it may be more dependent on a dry dormant period than others in the genus. Tha Pacific Bulb Society say: "Watsonia aletroides (Burman fil.) Ker Gawler is a Cape species found on clay slopes in renosterveld and flowering in spring. It grows to 50 cm high with sword-shaped leaves and red, occasionally pink or mauve (rarely white) nodding tubular flowers in an unbranched spike. It flowers in spring and abundantly after fires. " Peter Goldblatt says: "Watsonia aletroides is restricted to the south-western and southern Cape...It appears to prefer relatively drier sites and is usually found in renosterveld on hard clay soils, occasionally waterlogged and wet in spring. One of the first species in the genus to be named, Watsonia aletroides was described in 1768 by the Dutch botanist Nicholas Burman as Antholyza alethroides (sic). |
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| 6th June 2005 | ||
