Source:
SSA
Description:
Small glabrous, deciduous geophytes. Corm annual, flat-based, with reticulate fibrous tunics; roots arising from base of new corm, mostly thin, a few thick and contractile. Leaves 4-8, rosulate, semiterete to broadly linear, membranous and sheathed below, outermost without a lamina. Inflorescence 1- or 2-flowered; usually solitary in each leaf axil; scape simple, with 2 opposing filiform bracts below each flower. Flowers regular, white to pale pink; pedicels long or very short. Tepals connate into a short or long perigone tube; segments spreading, narrowly ovate, shorter or longer than tube. Stamens 3, arising from perigone throat opposite inner lobes; filaments short; anthers basifixed, latrorse with opposing locules, lobed below and above. Ovary 3-locular, ovoid, with many axile ovules; style bearing 3 recurved hooks; stigma 3-lobed, lobes long, linear, erect, often cohering. Fruit indehiscent, ovoid to obconic, crowned with old perigone tube, thin-walled, disintegrating irregularly. Seeds globose, black, shiny, verrucose.
Distribution:
Species 2, endemic to the winter-rainfall region of sthn Afr., Western Cape.
Classification:
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