What’s in a name? Hesperantha or Schizostylis?

The beautiful Kaffir Lily doesn’t deserve the botanists playing around with its name. It is such a useful garden plant, graceful, colourful, easy, flexible and it even flowers at a time of year when few plants are doing so, from late summer through the winter. And they even make a good cut flower! Who could ask for more?

For years we have known it as Schizostylis coccinea, but in the last few years the botanists have got their claws into it and decided to call it Hesperantha. This simply confuses gardeners.

But one thing these botanists cannot do is change how beautiful they are. I hope you agree after looking at the set of photos of the cultivars we grow here at Avocet.