A partial checklist of named Watsonia cultivars

Watsonia is a genus of the Iridaceae with about 53 species in southern Africa. They are perennial herbs growing from corms and producing spikes of showy flowers adapted to pollination by birds or insects. The species are generally interfertile, all being outbreeders with the same diploid chromosome number. Their wide range in size, phenology and flower colour, along with the ease of working with their large simple flowers, make them attractive subjects for collectors and amateur hybridists.

During the early 20th century there was interest in commercial production of named cultivars for home gardens and cut flowers, but the genus has been rather neglected since then. The following checklist is a ‘first pass’ through the referenced publications, with a bias toward those cultivars that have been released in Australia. It is not certain if every cultivar on this list is still extant.

You can download the list as a 210Kb pdf file from this link.

Watsonia ‘Leng’

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.16217.39520

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