Gazania

The botanical kind Gazania (francized in gazanie ) is made of 5 species of plants originating in South Africa and pertaining to the family of the Astéracées (or Composed). Very cultivated in the gardens, the gazanies adapted well to the Mediterranean climate. The most known species is Gazania rigens (L.) Gaertn., but there exist several other species and horticultural varieties. The generic name of the plant is dedicated to Theodore of Gaza (1398-1478), which translated into Latin botanical works of Théophraste, written in Greek.

List species

  • Gazania heterochaeta cd.
  • Gazania krebsiana Less.
  • Gazania longiscapa cd.
  • Gazania pinnata Less.
  • Gazania rigens (L.) Gaertn.

Description

( Gazania rigens )

Ecology and habitat

Plant indigenous in South Africa, sometimes naturalized on the Mediterranean shores, very cultivated in the gardens. Enough indifferent to nature ground, it seeks especially the sun, its flowerheads being closed when it is in the shade, and adapts relatively well to the dryness. Flowering from March to October, flowers being however more and larger in spring.

General and vegetative morphology

The gazanie is a long-lived herbaceous plant in South Africa and Mediterranean region, annual in the gardens of the colder areas. Enough low, it seldom exceeds 30 cm. It forms tufts often very abundant. Sheets all basal, many, narrow and more or less lancéolées, in general whole, sometimes pennatilobate. The avers of the sheets is green shining, the white reverse grisâtre.

Floral morphology

Like all composed, the gazanie flowers in flowerheads which one often takes for simple flowers. The flowerheads are solitary at the end of stalks hardly exceeding the sheets. Each flowerhead is made of a disc of tubulés florets surrounded by peripheral florets ligulas, whose color is very variable. The flowers orange yellow are however most numerous, often with black spots at the base of the ligulas.

Fruit and seeds

The fruit is a akene.

Gallery

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