Looking back at some old newspaper articles from 25 years ago, I came across the launch of 'Crystal Ice'. (Lynne hasn't aged a bit!) The Daily Mail remarked:

"It is the plant guaranteed to brighten your mood when the colourful days have turned into the long, dark nights of winter"
Daily Mail January 22nd, 2000

This is an outstanding variety with blue veins over white flowers. We consider this to be one of the best streptocarpus ever bred on our nursery. A medium sized plant.

One of the parents of 'Crystal Ice' is Streptocarpus kentaniensis. This species has the advantage, under good growing conditions, that it will bloom all year, being especially floriferous during the winter (just what we wanted for the Crystal series). The leaves of this species are also thin and lance-shaped - a characteristic passed on to 'Crystal Ice'.

Monty Don said in 2015, 'I have ‘Crystal Ice’, which produces its white flowers

marked with mauve in amazing numbers' and that this is 'My favourite houseplant'.¹

Alys Fowler said in the Guardian it's 'as if someone's taken a paintbrush to a white flower and gently brushed violet along its throat – stunning.'²

¹My favourite houseplant: This is the perfect time of year to enjoy your houseplants, says Monty Don, and they don’t come any better than free-flowering beauty streptocarpus  (2015) Daily Mail Online. Available at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/lifestyle/gardening/article-3373301/My-favourite-houseplant-perfect-time-year-enjoy-houseplants-says-Monty-Don-don-t-come-better-free-flowering-beauty-streptocarpus.html (Accessed: 11 November 2025).²Alys Fowler: Houseplants (2013) The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/feb/02/alys-fowler-houseplants (Accessed: 11 November 2025).