Florists’ favourite Alstroemeria
IN the mid 1700s, while on an expedition to South America, the naturalist Clas Alströmer sent back seeds of a flower he had discovered to Uppsala University in Sweden, where he was studying under Carl Linnaeus. The flower was later named alstroemeria in his honour.
Commonly known as Peruvian lily, alstroemerias are perennials that hail from South America. Their brightly coloured blooms are a magnet to bees, which are guided down into the nectarrich centres by the dark flecks on the petals. Thanks to their very long vaselife, they are equally popular with florists and, rather charmingly,
