4 Freesia alba Seeds - Indigenous South African Endemic Perennial Bulb - Combined Global Shipping

Freesia alba Seeds

South African Endemic Perennial Flower

Freesia is a genus of herbaceous perennial flowering plants in the family Iridaceae, first described as a genus in 1866 by Christian Friedrich Ecklon (1886) and named after the German botanist and medical practitioner, Friedrich Freese (1795-1876). It is native to the eastern side of southern Africa, from Kenya south to South Africa, most species being found in Cape Provinces. Species of the former genus Anomatheca are now included in Freesia. Freesia alba is a South African endemic species from the Western Cape Province. It is a geophyte, i.e. a plant that produces underground buds (bulbs, corms, tubers or rhizomes). In this case, the underground part is a corm, conical in shape, about 10 mm wide at the base, and covered with tunics of finely netted fibres. With its showy white spring flowers, exquisite perfume and relative ease in cultivation, Freesia alba is one of the most rewarding Cape bulbs to grow. Freesia alba is deciduous; growing in autumn to winter, flowering in spring and dormant in summer. Several leaves are produced, they are usually upright, and are sword-shaped, tapering to a sharp point. The flowers are produced in a horizontally bent, 2-8-flowered spike from mid-winter until early summer (July to October). They are white, often with a purple flush on the outside, sometimes with a yellow mark on the lowest tepal, and sometimes with purple in the throat, and have the strongest and sweetest fragrance of all the freesias, that includes the wild species and the hybrids.