Description

Baboon flowers are so named because in their native South Africa, the wild baboons were seen digging up the bulbs and eating them. They were also part of the indigenous people’s diet. The flowering plants are rarely more than 25cm tall and look a lot like miniature gladioli with attractive flowers in shades of blue, violet, white or cream on short spikes. The plant bears narrow, hairy, strongly ribbed leaves and branched spikes bearing cup shaped flowers above the foliage in spring. They look best planted in clumps in garden and border settings and also quite suitable as container plants.