#arctotis

Rare in its home range along South African coastlines, and of course enthusiastically invasive in California, Southern Australia and New Zealand.

Yet again, it was introduced to those areas as a garden ornamental and coastal stabilising plant, and lacking any of its native controls forms large, dense monocultures that smother and displace native species through shading and competition for resources. Highly adaptable, thriving in harsh coastal conditions with hot dry summers, mobile sands, strong winds, salt spray and low winter rainfall. Although around here in Perth, the winters only count as wet in comparison to the bone-dry scorching summers. Like other Arctotis species, the flowers only open during the day.

Arctotis taken from ‘Plantae quarum imagines ad exemplaria naturalia Londini’ by Georg Dionysius Ehret, Johann Jacob Haid, Christoph Jacob Trew

.Published 1750.

Missouri Botanical Garden. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/permissions

january doddles