GAZANIA XSPLENENS

DESCRIPTION: Gazania rigens is a spreading, low-growing, half-hardy perennial,

growing to 50 cm (20 in) tall and wide, with blue-grey foliage and brilliant yellow, daisy-
like composite flowerheads throughout the summer. It is a herbaceous plant that is perennial in
South Africa and in the Mediterranean regions, and annual in the gardens of colder regions.
Low enough, it rarely exceeds 30cm. It forms tufts, often very abundant. Its leaves all basal,
numerous, narrow and more or less lanceolate, usually entire, sometimes pennatilobed.
The obverse of the leaves is shiny green, the grayish white lapel.
Like all compounds , gazania flowers in flower heads that are often taken for simple flowers.
The capitula are solitary at the end of peduncles just beyond the leaves. Each capitulum is
formed by a central disc of tubular flowers, surrounded by ligulate peripheral flowers, whose
color is very variable. The orange-yellow flowers are however the most numerous, often with
black spots at the base of the ligules. The fruit is an achene, containing several seeds.