Spiloxene
Source:
SSA
Synonym(s):
Ianthe Salisb.: 44 (1866); Baker: 174 (1896) under Hypoxis L. subgenus Ianthe.
Description:
Small, mostly glabrous geophytes. Corm annual, covered with reticulate to pectinate fibrous tunics, or twisted hard roots, rarely smooth; old corms discoid, persisting near or at base of new corm; roots many, thin or sometimes contractile, arising from base of new corm. Leaves 1-12, tristichous, developing before flowering, ovate to linear, V-shaped, channelled or terete in cross section, glabrous or occasionally ciliate with uniseriate hairs, surrounded basally by membranous tubular sheaths. Inflorescence cymose, 1-6-flowered, glabrous; scape exserted from leaf sheaths; bracts 1 or 2, subtending each flower, foliaceous to linear or vestigial. Flowers stellate, orange, yellow or white, tinged with red or green on lower surface, occasionally with a dark centre; pedicels usually long, erect or deflexed in fruit. Tepals 6(4), free to base or rarely arising from a short solid neck, narrowly ovate, patent, persistent and connivent during ripening of fruit. Stamens 6(2 or 4), 2-seriate, exserted; filaments short; anthers linear, basifixed, latrorse. Ovary cylindrical to trigonous, 3-locular or rarely unilocular; ovules many, axile; style short, columnar; stigmas 3, free or connate, papillate on inner surface and margins. Capsule clavate to turbinate, circumscissile or less commonly septicidal. Seeds subglobose or J-shaped, black and shiny, minutely tuberculate; raphe and hilum conspicuous.
Distribution:
Species +/- 25, endemic to the winter-rainfall region of sthn Afr., usually in seasonally wet flats or rock crevices, Namibia, Northern, Western and Eastern Cape.