Felicia aethiopica

Felicia aethiopica is a soft shrublet reaching 1 m in height and spreading as wide or more. It has become a common garden subject.

The dense mass of evergreen foliage is covered in soft hairs. The leaves are narrowly elliptic or oval.

The bright blue ray florets around yellow centres may be seen nearly all year round. The plant can be distinguished from F. amelloides by the three veins on each of its involucral bracts forming the cup at the base of the flowerhead. F. amelloides has only has one such vein on each bract.

The seeds are dispersed by wind. There is a small tuft of hairs, a pappus, attached to each fruit. These hairs support the seed in flight to a spot for germinating a new plant, if all goes well. There is much risk but usually many seeds from much flowering.

The plant grows coastally and inland in the southern parts of the Western Cape, the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. This wide range represents subsp. ecklonis. Subsp. aethiopica only grows in the Western Cape.

The habitat of these plants is rocky flats and slopes. Neither subspecies is considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century (Manning, 2009; www.plantzafrica.com; http://redlist.sanbi.org).