The Blushing Bride is part of our local folklore: few plant species can have had as much conflicting information written about them. One thing is certain, however! Botanically Serruria florida was officially discovered by Carl Thunberg in the Franschoek Mountains in 1773. It then disappeared from the scientific annals for over 100 years. From then on authorities differ in their accounts. However, it appears to have been generally accepted by botanists of the day that it was extinct.

According to Conrad Leighton (Cape Floral Kingdom, 1960, Juta), the Blushing Bride was rediscovered at the French Hoek flower show in 1914, by Professor Harold Pearson (then director of the one-year old Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens), in the company of Dr Rudolf Marloth and Rt Hon. G. Brand van Zyl, who collected a few seeds from which “all the thousands of plants grown at Kirstenbosch subsequently, distributed as seed to members of the Botanical Society and the horticultural trade, and now grown commercially in South Africa and introduced to other countries” are derived.

So today’s fynbos specimen is a bit of a comeback story. Whilst this is a theme for 2010 in general, and very much a part of the lives of everyone at the farm (the dam being rebuilt, personal goals and other up and coming exciting events all around comebacks at Haut Espoir in 2010), I personally loved this story, and it made my week.

When Rob commissioned me to write this post, I was immediately intrigued by the name, Blushing Bride. There had to be a story behind it, and as a storyteller by nature, I went digging to find out what was going on here. It was way better than I thought.

Historically it is reputed that French Hugenots farmers would approach their girlfriends with a S. florida flower in their lapels when about to ask for their hand in marriage. The common name, Blushing Bride, apart from the obvious inference of the flowers colour, derives from the fact that the suitor’s intention was apparent to all who met him, much to the embarrassment of his bride to be. The deeper the pink colour the more serious the intentions of the suitor.

How romantic. I guess the idea that to wait for the flower to reach it’s most pink can draw comparisons to love, and how sometimes, it comes best to those who are willing to offer patience.

There was an interesting article placed here on the Botanical Society’s web presence where 30 avid FB’ers (Fynbossers, not Facebookers) took a beautiful walk to observe this fine species, which draws mystical appreciation for its comeback from the dead.

I personally have two thank you mentions to get out today with this particular species, the one has to go to Glenwood Wines, who took special care to restore their fynbos with a plethora of Blushing Brides, and then a special thank you to Fiona Powrie of Dragon Plants who is the angel who helped us do our species lists and helped plant out the fynbos section on Haut Espoir. She is our personal guru in Fynbos.

Before the article gets out of hand in length, I wanted to put one more link out there which I found, to show you how beautiful this plant gets. The page is called Skirted Spiderheads, and you can find it here. Please enjoy.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Sources:

1, 2 & 3