Species Synnotia villosa

For Walter Synnot (1773–1851), Irish captain of the 89th Regiment who led a group of settlers to South Africa in 1820, landing in Saldana Bay. Most of the settlers moved to Eastern Cape, but Synnot stayed in Clanwilliam and was appointed deputy landdrost in 1821. He sent many bulbs to England and the London nurseryman Robert Sweet, who credits him with the introduction of ‘more rare and new bulbs from the Cape of Good Hope at one time than was done by any other individual’. Synnot returned to Ireland in 1825, taking numerous bulbs and seed samples with him and, in 1836, emigrated to Australia and settled in Tasmania.