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Jovellana violacea (Cav.) G. Don

Modern name

Jovellana violacea (Cav.) G. Don

Synonyms

Calceolaria violacea Cav.

A semi-deciduous or, in mild winters, evergreen shrub up to 6 ft high young shoots semi-woody, slender, minutely downy. Leaves opposite, ovate in main outline, but very coarsely and irregularly toothed or even lobed, pointed. 12 to 114 in. long, 14 to 58 in. wide, dark dull green and with scattered hairs above, paler, and occasionally with a few hairs on the midrib and chief veins beneath. Flowers produced about midsummer in corymbs 112 to 3 in. across, that terminate slender, erect, downy flower-stalks. Corolla helmet-shaped, with a deep notch at each side (often described as ‘two-lipped’), 12 in. or less long, nearly as wide at the mouth, pale violet, spotted with purple inside and with a blotch of bright yellow in the throat; downy outside and at the margins. Calyx four-lobed, hairy outside and at the margins, the lobes ovate; stamens two, very shortly stalked, situated at the base of the corolla and surrounded with bristles there.

Native of Chile; introduced early in the 19th century. It is not genuinely hardy at Kew, although it has lived and occasionally flowered at the foot of a south wall there. In the warmer counties, if given a sunny spot, it succeeds very well, increasing its area by sucker growth and flowering very prettily.


Genus

Jovellana

Other species in the genus

[No species article available]