A spectacular red-hot poker from South Africa which commemorates Johann Hieronymus Kniphof (1704–63), professor of medicine at Erfurt University in Germany. He was famous for his 10-volume work Botanica in originali seu herbarium vivum in quo plantarum... (1759–64), which contained 1,189 pictures of plants each produced by coating the plant in (black) printer’s ink and then pressing it carefully onto the paper to produce a life-size image. These were then coloured by hand. Like a herbarium specimen, if the plant was too large for the page then the stem would be cut and it would be displayed in two parts. The whole process was hugely laborious and each specimen could only be used to make fi ve prints, so thousands of plants were needed – and of course the pages could only be printed when the plants were in fl ower. Only 10 complete copies are known to have survived. This was the first botanical atlas to use the Linnaean system of classification.

Kniphofia caulescens, a perennial in the family Asphodelaceae, hails from South Africa. In late summer, at the front of a sunny, well-drained border, it produces spikes of orange-flushed, cream flowers against glaucous leaves. Despite being borderline frost-hardy, it survives outside with an annual mulch of bark for protection.(Clare Beacham)

Kniphofia are pollinated by birds and insects. They have been used in ‘muthi’ medicine as a snake repellent and for chest complaints, but they contain toxic chemicals, knipholone compounds, and should not be eaten.

They contain toxic chemicals, knipholone compounds, and should not be eaten.