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A tiny species, no more than 30cm tall abd seriously endangered in the wild, where urban development
is eating up its restricted lowland habitat in the western Cape. My cultivation is still a bit hit and miss, but hopefully I will eventually find out how to make it prosper magnificently! I bought it from Beeches and their label says: "Small evergreen form with spikes of narrow, trumpet shapes, white flowers flushed pink on the exterior in late spring. On the borderline of hardiness in a light, well drained soil which never dries out." Plantzafrica says: "Watsonia humilis is a beautiful late-spring flowering cormous plant endemic to the southwestern Cape. Although highly threatened in the wild, successful cultivation is easily achieved in suitable conditions. Watsonia humilis is a protected species. Its Red List status is Critically Endangered (CR), which means that the best available evidence indicates the species is facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. It was once common and fairly widespread in the southwestern Cape but has lost almost all its habitat to agricultural, industrial and urban expansion. It is now confined to just two widely segregated, remnant populations, one of which is continuing to decline due to invasive alien plants, the other to continued urban expansion. Watsonia humilis is endemic to the Fynbos Biome in the southwestern Cape. Its distribution used to be from Malmesbury to the False Bay coast but in the last decade has diminished drastically and it is currently only known from one locality near Wolseley in the Upper Breede River Valley and another near Gordon's Bay east of Cape Town. It occurs in colonies on seasonally inundated lowland flats and lower hill slopes in fertile stony clays and coarse sandy or loamy soils, in Breede Shale Renosterveld and Swartland Granite Renosterveld. Watsonia humilis was first described by Philip Miller in the 8th edition of The Gardener's Dictionary , published in London in 1768. The specific name humilis is descriptive of the short stature of the plant, but it is by no means the shortest member of the genus |
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| 3rd April 2005 | ||
