Gerbera jamesonii

This Gerbera jamesonii flowerhead does not quite conform to the features of the plant found in nature. There are too many rows of shorter ray florets around the centre in this "double" flowerhead. Many enhanced cultivars produced in horticulture add flower colours and shapes to plants found in gardens worldwide.

This perennial, G. jamesonii reaches heights up to 70 cm, the height contributed by the long naked peduncles of the flowerheads. The plant grows tufted, its leaf rosette consisting of long-stalked, lobed and toothed, sometimes undulating leaves on the ground. The leaves are hairy on the margins, not much elsewhere.

Gerbera ray florets are usually female. They are two-lipped, the outer one strap-shaped and large, the inner lip two-lobed and small. The fertile, five-lobed disc florets in the centre are tiny. They are also two-lipped with curled petals.

The species distribution is in Mpumalanga, Limpopo and Gauteng, also in Swaziland.

The plants grow on rocky slopes in grassland and woodland, often in shaded spots and well-drained, sandy soils. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century.

The Jameson who brought this daisy from Barberton for promoting its planting in gardens in the 1860s had, according to some account, a son called Jacaranda Jim. The father was honoured in the specific name of this daisy, i.e. jamesonii. The town was recognised in the plant’s common name of Barberton daisy.

The son? The Jacaranda Jim nickname came from being well-known as the beautifier of Pretoria streets by driving the planting of jacarandas there. He was a town engineer and tree-planter in several more places, including Kimberley and Nairobi, Kenya.

This was, however, not the only story of how jacarandas started in Pretoria. A Japie Celliers arranged for two jacarandas to be planted in Groenkloof in 1888. He obtained them through a Pretoria businessman, James D Clark who also donated 200 jacaranda trees for the 51st anniversary of the founding of Pretoria on 16 November 1906. For his contribution, Clark was nicknamed Jacaranda Jim.

Who is right and does it matter? Voltaire said: History is nothing but a pack of tricks that we play upon the dead. It does matter to some people, the ones who delve deeper to record the truth of matters that interest them, as best they can find it. As time passes, the possibility of finding specific truths recede. Certainty is rarely total and absolute, although research tools become sharper through science. The needs for such truths depend on which triggers function later, which people are involved, with what aims and how they are informed and educated.

There was a third Jameson in the nineteenth century noted for outrageous political activities in Paul Kruger’s ZAR, but his exploits don’t deserve elaboration here (Manning, 2009; Germishuizen and Fabian, 1882; Letty, 1962; iNaturalist; https://www.theheritageportal.co.za; http://redlist.sanbi.org).