Watsonias
The Watsonias are flowers from the Iris Family. The entire genus of 52 species is found in South Africa and they are all incredibly beautiful.
wp-image-816″ title=”Watsonia1″ src=”http://walkinafrica.ilocals.info/files/2011/02/Watsonia1.jpg” alt=”” width=”336″ height=”448″ />
Right now we are in the midst of our summer, which is an extremely harsh time of year for plants. It is hot, dry and extremely windy and so predictably relatively few plants are in flower at this time.
Many of the Watsonias, however choose to flower now in spite of their delicate appearance.
They manage to do his because they possess underground storage vessels called corms in which they can store water and food and so they can get on with flowering even though these essentials are not freely available from the environment.
And beyond the fascinating ecological adaptations, they are simply a delight to behold when out walking the mountains!