Gesneria x donkelaariana Lemair

Horticultural & Botanical History

A Rechsteineria discolor (Lindl.) Kuntze x Sinningia speciosa (Lodd.) Hiern ‘Rubra’ hybrid, this plant was first described in 1853 by Lemair in Le Jardin Fleuriste in which he called it Gesneria x Donkelaariana.  It originated in the Botanic Gardens at Gaud and was named for the director of the Gardens, M. Donkelaar.  [FS f.902/1854].  ‘It may be had in bloom all year, by starting plants into growth at suitable successive periods, and after blooming, gradually to withhold water till the soil is all but dry, in which barely moist state the tubers must be kept undisturbed in the pot during the necessary time of rest.’  [FC p.49/1855].  I assume that the plant figured in Curtis’s botanical Magazine is the same as Lemair’s plant.  ‘One of the handsomest of Gesneriaceous plants now in cultivation in our stoves.  We are enabled to figure this plant from the rich collection of Messrs. Veitch and Son’s Nurseries of Exeter and Chelsea, where it flowered in June of the present year.  It is probably a native of Columbia, a region so rich in species of this genus, but at present we only know the plant in a state of cultivation.  If the colours of the flowers are not so bright as those of many species of the genus, their size, and the fine velvety foliage, dark-green on the upper surface, purple beneath, amply compensate for that imperfection.’  [BM t.5070/1858]. 

History at Camden Park

Listed only as an addendum to the 1857 catalogue [A.52/1857].

Notes