Saintpaulia Violet-flowered

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Violet Saintpaulia (Latin Saintpaulia ionantha) - a herbaceous flowering plant of the genus Saintpaulia (Latin Saintpaulia) of the Gesneriaceae family (Latin Gesneriaceae). Born in Africa, the plant has firmly established itself on window sills and flower shelves around the world. Attractive dark green thick leaves, a variety of shades and shapes of flowers, almost continuous flowering all year round, the compactness of the plant have turned the Violet-flowered Saintpaulia into a popular houseplant.

What's in your name

The Latin generic name keeps the memory of two people, a son and his father. The son was a man who was the first to discover one of the species of the genus, finding it in a crevice of a stunned stone in the Uzambar Mountains, spread out in the southeast of the African continent. As the commandant of the German colony, Walter von Saint-Paul (Walter Le Tanneux de Saint Paul, 1860-12-01 - 1940-12-12) was not devoid of sentimentality and very picturesquely told about his find, the petals and flower shape of which he found similar to Violet, but only much softer. He sent the seeds of the plant to his father, Ulrich von Saint-Paul, in Germany. The father gave the seeds to Hermann Wendland, a botanist, who grew a plant from them, calling it "Saintpaulia ionantha". From Germany, Saintpaulia began her journey around the world as a popular houseplant.

The specific epithet "ionantha", which sounds in Russian as "violet-flowered", pays tribute to the shape and color of the flowers of the plant, which outwardly are very similar to the flowers of plants of the genus Violet (Viola), morphologically belonging to a completely different family, Violet (Violaceae).

The official Latin name of the plant has synonyms that can often be found in literature and in life. The plant is called "African Violets" (African violet) or "Usambara Violets" (Usambar, or Uzambar violet).

Description

The first description of the plant, made by Walter von Saint-Paul, is very lyrical, and tells about ten leaves of a juicy dark green color, against which the blue flowers seemed to emit a pale light with a bright yellow spark of stamens in the center of the flowers.

Evergreen undersized compact plant forms a dense rosette of thick pubescent leaves of a dark green color. The leaves have juicy pubescent petioles of a dark lilac color. The reverse side of the leaves with a lilac tint. The shape of the leaves is from ovoid to round-oval. The veins radiating from the central vein to the edges of the shiny, velvety leaf plate give the leaf surface a convex appearance, and the edge turns into a pleasant wavy line. All this makes an independent natural work of art out of a rosette of leaves.

Right above the foliage, a panicle inflorescence rises from numerous flowers, the shape of which is similar to the shape of the Violet flowers, but they are much more delicate than the latter. The tireless breeders managed to diversify the natural blue-purple color of the petals with other colors, which allowed flower growers to admire white, pink, Fuchsia colors (hot pink with a shade of lilac) and a wide variety of shades of blue-violet. Bred varieties with a two-color color, as well as with contrasting spots, dots or strokes on the main background of the petal. Cultivated varieties have achieved an increase in the number of petals, turning their single row into a double one, or into a real feast of numerous semi-double petals, when the flowers became more like miniature roses rather than Violets. In the center of flowers, including semi-double ones, a yellow "lamp" of stamens is burning. Under favorable conditions, the flowering of Saintpaulia violet-flowered lasts almost all year round.

Saintpaulia violet-flowered - a symbol of motherhood

The African violet has long been associated all over the world with motherhood. Therefore, if you are at a loss with a gift for your mother, feel free to buy a compact pot with a delicate noble plant.