Gianluca Corazza

Gianluca Corazza was born in Pietrasanta, Italy on June 29th, 1968. He is a botanical horticulturist, writer, plant blogger, botanical popularizer and photographer. Since when he was a child he was fascinated by natural sciences. From 1990 to 2013 he worked as a volunteer at the Lucca Botanic Garden. In 1995 founded Vivaio Corazza, a botanical nursery producing and preserving unusual plants. Together with Lucia Cortopassi (his wife) in 2014 he published “Piante Alimentari Insolite”, Edizioni Il Campano, Pisa, a book about botany, cultivation and use of 50 unusual edible plant species (in Italian). He also wrote articles for different magazines about aloes, stapeliads and Welwitschia mirabilis. He gives public lectures and speaks at conferences and workshops about plants, botany and horticulture. He bred new vegetable cultivars, like Citrullus lanatus 'Cocoro', 2013, (the first watermelon with both rind and flesh yellow), Cucumis sativus 'Beluga', 2012, (a light whitish-green long cucumber), Solanum melongena 'Perona Bianca', 2016, (a very large, white, pear-shaped aubergine), Ipomoea batatas 'Radiosa', 2015, (a sweet potato with thin pink and orange speckles arranged like rays if cut in section). He currently studies and grows many species, but his work is mainly focused on Gesneriaceae, Amaryllidaceae, Araceae, Begoniaceae, Iridaceae and Apocynaceae.