blushing bride

last week i posted a photo of a flower called blushing bride that i'd stumbled across on gracia louise's blog. i had never seen it before, loved it immediately, and had a pretty hard time getting the results i was after by googling "blushing bride" and "flower".

i didn't check back at gracia's blog to see that she'd posted some info about the flowers. we turned up the same stuff:

• blushing bride is serruria florida, from the protea family.


• the common name for the genus serruria is spiderhead


• there are over 50 species native to south africa


• they grow as small evergreen shrubs in dry, nutrient poor soil


• they make great potted plants, and even better cut flowers -- they last 7-10 days, and dry well.

housemartin told me that the blushing brides she'd seen are a lot more pale and less pink than the ones gracia louise posted. turns out that gracia's are actually a variety called sugar and spice, and i think they're the prettiest.

i found nurseries that carry them in england, and australia, but no luck for canada so far...