Interesting facts about Eustoma flowers, commonly known as Lisianthus, Texas bluebell, prairie gentian or Japanese rose.
Eustoma used to be called Lisianthus, which is still its common name. If you look in a flower catalogue in the UK you will probably find them called Lisianthus. It is also known as Texas bluebell, prairie gentian or Japanese rose. Texas bluebell makes sense when you know that the flower is native to the Southern United States, Mexico, the Caribbean, and the north of South America.
The reason that it is called Japanese Rose is because the modern Lisianthus was created in Japan by flower breeders in the 1930s. That means that the Lisianthus or Eustoma we see today are the result of breeding for colour. And that leads to the fact that we would have to look in old photos or drawings from before the 1930s to see what the flower used to look like.
That aside, all of this begs another question. That is, why was the scientific name changed. The answer is that it was reclassified because of better techniques in plant genetics.
The name Eustoma comes from a combination of the Greek words ‘eu’ (meaning pleasing) and ‘stoma’ meaning mouth.
Eustoma flowers can grow up to 50mm (2 inches) across and in a variety of colors. They come in pink, purple, white, yellow, red, and blue. And some are bi-coloured. And that may be where the pleasant mouth originates. That and the fact that the plant can bloom for a month or more.
Stoma, Stomata, and Sky Rivers
Stoma is a common word in the scientific descriptions of plants. The plural is stomata, and they are the tiny openings on leaves or stems by which plants exchange gases in the process of photosynthesis. They also regulate transpiration by opening and closing like little mouths. Transpiration is the way plants regulate retaining or releasing water vapour from their leaves.
You may have seen programmes on the Amazon river, with trees giving off water vapour so that from above one can see that they are the highways of water in the sky. The Amazon sky river is so big that it crosses the Atlantic Ocean in a huge stream in the sky. There are many sky rivers around the planet, originating with untold millions of little stomata opening and closing.
Personally, I love the delicacy of the flowers, the way the petals of the closed flower heads twist around in a spiral. And I like the tendrils that reach out and wrap around the stems. All in all, it is a lovely flower.
Eustoma ‘Just Because’ Greeting Card
If you are interested in a greeting card featuring a Eustoma flower, just click this small image of the flower to go to the product page for the card.