African Daisies (A Bloom Day Prelude)

You may have noticed that I generally refer to plants by their botanical names.  Maybe that comes across as pretentious but I do it mainly because those names make the identity of plants clear, whereas common names often confuse matters, even if they're easier to remember and pronounce.   Common names often vary by location and thus may baffle people from different parts of the country or elsewhere in the world.  When I formerly conducted tours of the local botanic garden, the example I used to illustrate this point was Soleirolia soleirolii, a tongue-twister if there ever was one.  I know these plants by the common name of "baby tears" but people in the UK call them "mind-your-own-business."  I asked people on my tours what they would think if they asked someone what that delicate little creeping plant was and the response was "mind your own business."  However, the bigger issue is that many plants bear the same common name, although they may look very different and belong to entirely different genera.

"African daisies" are a prominent case in point.  This common name is used to refer to many plants including those in the genera Arctotis, Dimorphotheca, Gazania, Gerbera, and Osteospermum.  The only things most of them share is that they're native to Africa; they have petals surrounding a central disk; and they belong to the Asteraceae plant family.

Here are examples of those I currently have in my garden:

Arctotis

This is the Arctotis cultivar 'Large Marge'.  It's flowers are particularly big.  They're also even brighter than they appear in my photos - I've joked that they can probably be seen from space.

This is 'Opera Pink', which grows in partial shade in my garden.  All the Arctotis I've seen have grayish green foliage and their flowers have a flat eye at their centers.  I've seen no evidence that they self-seed but they can be propagated via cuttings.

This is 'Pink Sugar', which I've grown for over 10 years.  It and all the Arctotis shown above are hybrid cultivars, none of which are probably found growing as natives in Africa in these forms.  In my experience, all handle sun and heat relatively well.  

Gazania

I expect that most of the Gazanias in my garden are also hybrids.  Many of those I've planted started out as named cultivars but they self-seed freely in my warm climate and they don't always show up looking like their parents.  Those shown above may have originated from a cultivar called 'Golden Flame'.

Some of these may have started out from plants in the 'New Day' series, which is advertised as being particularly drought tolerant.  Like Arctotis, Gazanias can handle intense sun and moderately high temperatures.  Unfortunately, my rabbit visitors seem very fond of them.

This is a cultivar known as 'White Flame' from the Gazania 'Big Kiss' series.  Like Arctotis, Gazanias close their petals in low light, making them less useful as cut flowers; however, those in the 'Sunbathers' series produce ruffled centers that allow the petals to remain open in low light.  My 'Otomi' cultivar isn't blooming at present but you can see others in the 'Sunbathers' series in my 2015 post here.

Osteospermum

I grow more Osteospermums than any other of the so-called African daisies.  I'm especially fond of the varieties with ruffled centers.  Shown above are Osteospermums '4D Silver' and '4D Violet Ice'.

Clockwise from the upper left are Osteospermum '4D Pink', another of my favorites, what I think is 'Serenity Pink', followed by 2 other noID paler pink varieties.  The petals of the plant on the lower left look white in my photo but they're a very pale pink viewed in person.

Osteospermums '4D Sunburst' on the left and 'Double Moonglow' on the right

Osteospermums 'Serenity Bronze' on the left and 'Serenity Coral Magic' on the right, purchased years apart but they look very similar

The 2 Osteospermums on the left are 'Serenity Purple' and the one on the right is 'Purple Spoon'.  I love those with the spoon-shaped blooms but I've found most revert to more conventional petal shapes over time (or when they self-seed).

This self-seeded variety reminds me of Osteospermum 'Berry White'.  I failed to photograph 'Berry White' for comparison purposes but they share similar ruffled centers.  The self-seeded variety has larger blooms and the upper sides of the petals are white rather than pink but the undersides of the petals of both are brushed with bronze color.

The Osteospermum '4D White' on the left appeared in local garden centers just last year.  The simpler white forms shown in 2 different areas on the right are the most common in my garden.  All were self-seeded.

Osteospermums mingle comfortably with one another as shown above.  The plants in general are much more sensitive to heat than either Arctotis or Gazanias.  When temperatures soar, flower production effectively shuts down, only to recover as temperatures decline in late fall.  They're short-lived perennials in my climate but self-seeded plants often replace those that shut down completely.

I don't have any photos of Dimorphotheca or Gerberas to share.  Dimorphotheca flowers look virtually identical to those of Osteospermums to my eyes but the former are annuals whereas Osteospermums are perennials in climates like mine.  Given the frequency with which botanists are reclassifying plants, I'm frankly surprised they haven't been lumped into the same genus.  As to Gerberas, I'm terrible at keeping them alive.  In my experience, they require more water than any of those I'm featured above.

Another thing that annoys me about the frequency with which all these plants are lumped together without distinction under the common name of "African Daisies" is that there's at least one other daisy-flowered African native I can think of that's seemingly never included in that category.

Felicia

The common names for Felicia aethiopica include "blue daisy" and "wild aster".  The specific epithet "aethiopica" actually means "from Africa."  In my garden it blooms year-round if regularly deadheaded.  Like the daisies described above it's relatively drought tolerant.  It's also in the Asteraceae plant family.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day officially falls on Monday, April 15th, but I've already collected a record number of photos from my garden.  The heavier-than-normal rain we've had, recently followed by temperatures in the 70s to low 80sF, has led to a floral explosion.  This post carves the "African Daisies" out of that post and I'm considering other ways to pare down the content of my Bloom Day post, which I don't expect to publish until Wednesday, April 17th.

P.S. By coincidence, prior to finalizing this post, I visited a local garden center yesterday and overheard a woman asking a nursery person for a "pincushion succulent."  When the staffer replied that they didn't carry such a plant I interjected that she might mean a Leucospermum, plants that have flowers described as "pincushions" that are drought tolerant although not classified as succulents.  I pulled up "pincushion plants" on my phone, which showed a Scabiosa (commonly known as "pincushion flower"), followed by a Leucospermum (commonly known as a "pincushion shrub").  She identified the Leucospermum as the plant she was referring to.  I pointed her in the direction of those plants in the garden center and identified another local garden center that also usually has a good supply of the plants.  On my way out, I told the nursery person how things had worked out and she told me that she links "pincushion flowers" to Scabiosas, not Leucospermums and therefore didn't make the connection.

All material © 2012-2024 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party