B. ‘Winter Gem’

The Garden, v. 39, (1891) B. Winter Gem: This is another beautiful hybrid winter-flowering Begonia of the B. socotrana race, raised by hybridizing the flowers of B. socotrana with pollen from a crimson-flowered Andean type. It completes the trio of these valuable and attractive flowers, the others being John Heal and Adonis, all Mr. Heal's successes. The latest addition justifies the name of Winter Gem. It is unlike the hybrid John Heal, but has some resemblance to B. socotrana; the habit is dwarf, more compact, and the peduncles less lax, the flowers having more substance, of larger size, and of a more brilliant color, which is a rich carmine, almost crimson. The small pan of it from Messrs. J. Veitch and Sons, Chelsea, showed its value, and conspicuously so, for the reason that the flowers were untouched by dense fogs, that at Chelsea are as thick and nauseous as in any district of the metropolis.; Winter Gem, flowers more crimson than carmine, freely produced, leaves rhomboid. more like B. socotrana than the other hybrids.
Pests Diseases

• Classification: Cultivar
• Plant Type: Hiemalis
• Origin: Europe, UK
• Originator: Heal
• Date of Origin: 1888