Avonia quinaria

     Found in the Namaqualand and Bushmanland provinces of South Africa, Avonia quinaria is a diminutive member of the genus. The stems are barely an eighth inch thick and only an inch or two long except when flowering. Of the four Avonia I have it is the only one with a developed caudex. It's about an inch around. The type species has red or pink flowers, mine apparently is the subspecies alstonii which has white flowers. They are supposedly self fertile.
     Mine came from a visit to Miles 2 Go last October. It held on in my greenhouse through the winter and now in mid May it rewarded me with some flowers. I missed two unfortunately but managed to capture two flowers at once. No signs of real growth yet though. One of the things I found interesting is the speed at which certain stems suddenly took off and produced buds. They grew three times the length of the other stems and flowered in only a few days. Flowers lasted just one day and then the stem died all the way back to the caudex. I guess they didn't get pollinated. Geoff, a fellow member of the Davesgarden.com gardening forums has consented to letting me use the picture of the fine show specimen below. Thanks geoff :-) Click HERE for a gallery of more of Geoffs pictures.

Gorgeous flowers

Show specimen