Gloriosa are a flower very close to my heart as they are the national flower of Zimbabwe, the country I grew up. They grow wild in the bush there and appear all over the countryside in the rainy season in vivid splashes of Orange and red. They are locally known as flame lilies or Jongwe which in Shona means Rooster.
Below is a picture of me in Zimbabwe admiring a Gloriosa growing on Domboshawa (a large Granite rock structure which lies just North of the capital city of Harare)
A few years ago Hermes commissioned us to create a curtain of flowers to drape over the entrance of their Sloane street store for a party. It was to the Gloriosa that we turned to create the fabric of this curtain.
We strung hundreds of them onto fishing line to create the curtain which we finished with a boss of velvety rouge noir roses and a fringing of red Amaranthus which you can see below.
An abundance of Gloriosa looks incredible but just a few flower heads floating in a glass fishbowl look very striking too.
Comments
So interesting to read your article above; saw you for the first time on a television show recently and instantly recognised your accent. My thoughts meandered to the flame lily and I wondered if you had had the opportunity to include it in any of your work. Great to see! I grew up in Harare and a couple of months ago encountered Flame Lily's in all their glory clamouring for attention along the a foot path in Magnetic Island Queensland; what a sweet surprise. I too spent many happy moments on my bicycle enjoying hunting for floral treasures, with my Cherry Plum, biltong and Arenal fizz pops for sustenance. You are probably to young to relate to the latter!!