Saintpaulia, commonly known as
African violet, is a genus of 6 species of
herbaceousA herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaves and stems that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. They have no persistent woody stem above ground...
perennialA perennial plant or perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. When used by gardeners or horticulturalists, this term applies specifically to perennial herbaceous plants...
flowering plantThe flowering plants or angiosperms are the most diverse group of land plants. The flowering plants and the gymnosperms are the only extant groups of seed plants...
s in the family
GesneriaceaeGesneriaceae is a family of flowering plants consisting of ca. 150 genera and ca. 3200 species in the Old World and New World tropics and subtropics, with a very small number extending to temperate areas. Many species have colorful and showy flowers and are cultivated as ornamental plants.Most...
, native to
TanzaniaThe United Republic of Tanzania is a country in central East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.The United...
and adjacent southeastern
KenyaThe Republic of Kenya is a country in East Africa. Lying along the Indian Ocean, at the equator, Kenya is bordered by Ethiopia , Somalia , Tanzania , Uganda plus Lake Victoria , and Sudan . The capital city is Nairobi. Kenya spans an area about 85% the size of France or Texas...
in eastern tropical
AfricaAfrica is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.8% of the...
, with a concentration of species in the
Nguru mountainsThe Nguru Mountains are a mountain range in Morogoro District, Tanzania, Africa. The mountains are predominantly covered with rainforest, are abundant with 83 species of bird life , and are the home of African violets...
of Tanzania. The genus is most closely related to
StreptocarpusStreptocarpus is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Gesneriaceae, closely related to the genus Saintpaulia. One common name is Cape Primrose, referring to the nativity of several species to South Africa and their superficial resemblance to the genus Primula...
, with recent phylogenetic studies suggesting it has evolved directly from subgenus
Streptocarpella.
Saintpaulia, commonly known as
African violet, is a genus of 6 species of
herbaceousA herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaves and stems that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. They have no persistent woody stem above ground...
perennialA perennial plant or perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. When used by gardeners or horticulturalists, this term applies specifically to perennial herbaceous plants...
flowering plantThe flowering plants or angiosperms are the most diverse group of land plants. The flowering plants and the gymnosperms are the only extant groups of seed plants...
s in the family
GesneriaceaeGesneriaceae is a family of flowering plants consisting of ca. 150 genera and ca. 3200 species in the Old World and New World tropics and subtropics, with a very small number extending to temperate areas. Many species have colorful and showy flowers and are cultivated as ornamental plants.Most...
, native to
TanzaniaThe United Republic of Tanzania is a country in central East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.The United...
and adjacent southeastern
KenyaThe Republic of Kenya is a country in East Africa. Lying along the Indian Ocean, at the equator, Kenya is bordered by Ethiopia , Somalia , Tanzania , Uganda plus Lake Victoria , and Sudan . The capital city is Nairobi. Kenya spans an area about 85% the size of France or Texas...
in eastern tropical
AfricaAfrica is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.8% of the...
, with a concentration of species in the
Nguru mountainsThe Nguru Mountains are a mountain range in Morogoro District, Tanzania, Africa. The mountains are predominantly covered with rainforest, are abundant with 83 species of bird life , and are the home of African violets...
of Tanzania. The genus is most closely related to
StreptocarpusStreptocarpus is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Gesneriaceae, closely related to the genus Saintpaulia. One common name is Cape Primrose, referring to the nativity of several species to South Africa and their superficial resemblance to the genus Primula...
, with recent phylogenetic studies suggesting it has evolved directly from subgenus
Streptocarpella. The common name was given due to a superficial resemblance to true
violetViola is a genus of flowering plants in the violet family Violaceae, with around 400–500 species distributed around the world. Most species are found in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, however viola species are also found in widely divergent areas such as Hawaii, Australasia, and the Andes in...
s (
Viola, family
ViolaceaeViolaceae is a family of flowering plants consisting of about 800 species in 21 genera...
).
Taxonomy
The genus is named after Baron Walter von Saint Paul-Illaire (1860-1910), the district commissioner of Tanga province who discovered the plant in
TanganyikaTanganyika was an East African territory lying between the Indian Ocean and the largest of the African great lakes: Lake Victoria, Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika. From 9 December 1961 to 26 April 1964 it was also an independent nation. Once part of the colony of German East Africa , it comprised...
(now
TanzaniaThe United Republic of Tanzania is a country in central East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.The United...
) in Africa in 1892 and sent seeds back to his father, an amateur botanist in
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
. Two British plant enthusiasts, Sir John Kirk and Reverend W.E. Taylor, had earlier collected and submitted specimens to
Royal Botanic Gardens, KewThe Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to simply as Kew Gardens, are 121 hectares of gardens and botanical glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in southwest London, England. The director is Professor Stephen D. Hopper, who succeeded Professor Sir Peter Crane...
in 1884 and 1887 respectively, but the quality of specimens was insufficient to permit scientific description at that time. The genus
Saintpaulia, and original species
S. ionantha, were scientifically described by
J. C. WendlandJohann Christoph Wendland was a German botanist and gardener who was a native of Petit-Landau, Alsace. His son- Heinrich Ludolph Wendland and his grandson- Hermann Wendland were also gardeners and botanists.As a young man he received an education in horticulture at the nursery of Karlsruhe Palace...
in 1893.
Saintpaulias grow from 6-15 cm tall and can be anywhere from 6-30 cm wide. The
leavesIn botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin. There is continued debate about whether the flatness of leaves evolved to expose the chloroplasts to more light or to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide. In...
are rounded to oval, 2.5-8.5 cm long with a 2-10 cm petiole, finely hairy, and with a fleshy texture. The
flowerA flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds...
s are 2-3 cm diameter, with a five-lobed velvety corolla ("petals"), and grow in clusters of 3-10 or more on slender stalks (peduncles). Flower colour in the wild species can be violet, purple, pale blue, or white.
Several of the species and subspecies are
endangeredAn endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters. Also it could mean that due to deforestation there may be a lack of food and/or water...
, and many more are threatened, due to clearance of their native
cloud forestA cloud forest, also called a fog forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical evergreen montane moist forest characterized by a high incidence of low-level cloud cover, usually at the canopy level. Cloud forests often exhibit an abundance of mosses covering the ground and vegetation, in which...
habitat for
agricultureAgriculture is the production of food and goods through farming and forestry. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of human civilization, with the husbandry of domesticated animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more densely populated and...
.
Revisions of the genus by
B.L. BurttBrian Laurence Burtt , was an English botanist and taxonomist who is noted for his contributions to the family Gesneriaceae...
had expanded the genus to approximately 20 species. On the basis of recent studies that showed most of the species to be very poorly differentiated, both genetically and morphologically, the number of species has been reduced to 6, with the majority of former species reduced to subspecies under
S. ionantha, in a recent floristic treatment (Darbyshire 2006).
Old name vs. current name
- Saintpaulia amaniensis = S. ionantha ssp. grotei
- Saintpaulia brevipilosa = S. ionantha ssp. velutina
- Saintpaulia confusa = S. ionantha ssp. grotei
- Saintpaulia difficilis = S. ionantha ssp. grotei
- Saintpaulia diplotricha = S. ionantha ssp. ionantha var. diplotricha
- Saintpaulia grandifolia = S. ionantha ssp. grandifolia
- Saintpaulia grotei = S. ionantha ssp. grotei
- Saintpaulia intermedia = S. ionantha ssp. pendula
- Saintpaulia magungensis = S. ionantha ssp. grotei
- Saintpaulia magungensis var. minima = S. ionantha ssp. grotei
- Saintpaulia magungensis var. occidentalis = S. ionantha ssp. occidentalis
- Saintpaulia nitida = S. ionantha ssp. nitida
- Saintpaulia orbicularis = S. ionantha ssp. orbicularis
- Saintpaulia pendula = S. ionantha ssp. pendula
- Saintpaulia pendula var. kizarae = S. ionantha ssp. pendula
- Saintpaulia rupicola = S. ionantha ssp. rupicola
- Saintpaulia tongwensis = S. ionantha ssp. ionantha var. ionantha
- Saintpaulia velutina = S. ionantha ssp. velutina
Cultivation
Saintpaulias are widely cultivated as house plants. Until recently, only a few of these species have been used in breeding programs for the hybrids available in the market; most available as house plants are
cultivarA cultivar is a cultivated plant that has been selected and given a unique name because of desired characteristics; it is usually distinct from similar plants and when propagated it retains those characteristics....
s derived from
Saintpaulia ionantha (syn.
S. kewensis). A wider range of species is now being looked at as sources of genes to introduce into modern cultivars.
Over 16,700 cultivars have been selected for
horticulturalHorticulture is the industry and science of plant cultivation. Some would say that horticulture is the process of preparing soil for the planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings. Horticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of plant propagation and cultivation, crop production, plant...
use. There are many different leaf and flower types found; cultivars are classified as Large, Standard, Trailing, Semi-mini, Mini, and Micro with Micro being the smallest. They range in flower colour from white, pink, violet, dark red, yellow, and some even green, and the flowers may be either single (five petals) or double (more than five, with some or all of the
stamenThe stamen is the male organ of a flower. Each stamen generally has a stalk called the filament , and, on top of the filament, an anther , and pollen sacs,...
s converted into extra petals). Flowers are not always a solid colour, but can also be found in the "fantasy" variety where the petals have strips of colours going down them. One interesting flower form found in the African Violet are known as a "wasp"; these flowers have the upper two flower petals independently fused forming a tube. There are also compound leaves on some, that are called "bustled". Chimeras are very popular also, these have the desirable striped "pinwheel" blooms.
Saintpaulias can be propagated by leaf cuttings (essential for propagating named cultivars) or seed (from which new cultivars are selected). Chimeras need to be reproduced from stem suckers or bloomstalks. African violets prefer a constant temperature between 20-25 °C (68-77 °F) with high humidity, and thrive best planted in well-drained
humusHumus is degraded organic material in soil, which causes some soil layers to be dark brown or black....
or
coirCoir is a coarse fiber extracted from the fibrous outer shell of a coconut.- Structure :Coir fibers are found between the husk and the outer shell of a coconut. The individual fiber cells are narrow and hollow, with thick walls made of cellulose...
compost. Many African Violet growers are now using a sterile soil-less potting mix, made up from Vermiculite, Perlite and Peat.
Some popular early cultivars include 'Amazen Grace', 'Blue Border', 'Claret Queen', 'Dupont Blue', 'Ding Dong Trail', 'Glacier', 'Little Jewel', 'Mini Marina', 'Pink Miracle', and 'Porcelain'.
External links