Romulea rosea

Manning, John C. & Goldblatt, Peter, 2001, the Arabian Peninsula and Socotra including new species, biological notes, and a new infrageneric classification, Adansonia (3) 23 (1), pp. 59-108 : 98-99

57. Romulea rosea (L.) Eckl.

Topogr. Verz.: 19 (1927); M. P. de Vos, J. S. African Bot., Suppl. 9: 246 (1972); Fl. S. Africa 7(2), fasc. 2: 62 (1983). — Ixia rosea L., Syst. Nat. 75 (1766). — Type: Illustration in MILLER, Figures of Plants 160, pl. 240 (1760) .

Plants 15-60 cm high, stem subterranean; corm rounded at base with curved acuminate teeth. Leaves 3-6, basal, narrowly 4-grooved, 0.5- 2 mm diam.; outer bracts with very narrow membranous margins, inner bracts with wide brownish membranous margins. Flowers pink to magenta or white, often with a purplish zone around the yellow cup, occasionally sweetly scented, tepals elliptic to oblanceolate, 10-38 mm long; filaments 4-6 mm long, anthers 3-10 mm long. Fruiting peduncles curved at first, later erect. Flowering: July-Oct.

Common and highly variable, Romulea rosea occurs in a variety of habitats, often on stony clay flats and slopes throughout the Cape Region from the Bokkeveld Mts. to Port Elizabeth. It is recognized in the section by the purple-magenta flowers with a pale cup and usually numerous leaves. The species is easily confused with R. obscura which has more or less yellow tinges to the flowers and strongly diverging, almost horizontal fruiting peduncles. DE VOS recognized five varieties of which the small-flowered plant with pale mauve flowers and a cream cup that occurs in trampled places and on roadsides seems most common. This is var. australis (Ewart) M.P. de Vos and is found frequently growing alongside individuals with typical, large flowers growing in undisturbed ground.

58. Romulea lilacina J.C. Manning & Goldblatt , sp. nov.

Plantae 2-3 cm altae, caule subterraneo, cormo ovoideo 5-7 mm diam. asymmetrico, folio unico filiformi viscoso, c. 0.5 mm diam., inflorescentia ex flore solitario pallide lilicino atrovenoso constante, tubo perianthii 5-6 mm longo, tepalis ellipticis 16-17 × 5-7 mm, filamentis 8-9 mm longis in duabus tertiis partibus infernis pilosis, antheris contiguis 3.5-4 mm longis.

TYPUS — Manning 2252, South Africa, Western Cape, Cold Bokkeveld, Zeekoegat , west bank of Riet River at foot of Katbakkies Pass , deep sand in open restio veld, 5 June 2000 (holo-, NBG!; iso-, PRE!).

Plants 2-3 cm high, the stem subterranean and the flowers borne at ground level. Corm ovoid, asymmetric, rounded at the base with curved acuminate teeth, 5-7 mm diam. Leaf 1, basal, spreading, filiform, narrowly 4-grooved, flushed maroon, sticky, c. 0.5 mm diam. Inflorescence of 1 solitary flower; outer bracts flushed maroon, with narrow membranous margins, sticky, 10 mm long, inner bracts submembranous, lightly flushed maroon in the narrow center with wide colorless membranous margins, sticky, 11 mm long. Flowers cup-shaped, pale lilac with darker veins, especially in the cup, yellow at the base of the cup, the outer tepals streaked with purple on the reverse, unscented, perianth tube funnel-shaped, 5-6 mm long, tepals elliptic, 16-17 × 5-7 mm. Filaments inserted near the base of the tube, free, 8-9 mm long, densely hairy in the lower two thirds, lilac; anthers parallel and contiguous, 3.5-4 mm long, lilac. Style dividing between halfway and opposite the upper third of the anthers, the branches c. 1 mm long, divided for half their length. Fruiting peduncles recurved. Capsules and seeds unknown. Flowering: May- June. — Fig. 4 .

Known from a single extended population at the foot of the Katbakkies Pass in the Cold Bokkeveld of Western Cape Province, South Africa, Romulea lilacina is an early flowering species restricted to open washes in deep sandy soils where the plants grow scattered between clumps of Restionaceae . It was first collected by Mary S TOBIE, wife of the Director of the Observatory in Cape Town, in June 2000. The diminutive plants are characterized by the single, sticky maroon leaf and sticky bracts, which all become covered with adhering sand particles. The pale lilac flowers lack a distinct yellow cup and have unusually long filaments that are conspicuously hairy for most of their length. The flowers are borne at ground level on short peduncles that curve over immediately after flowering to bury the developing fruit in the sand. Another early-flowering, solitary-leaved species, R. sphaerocarpa , also has sticky leaves and bracts.

Romulea lilacina resembles R. cedarbergensis in its delicate habit and small, solitary flowers in which the filaments are distinctly longer than the anthers. It is distinguished from the later-flowering R. cedarbergensis by its solitary, sticky leaf, uniformly pale lilac flowers which lack a welldefined yellow cup and lilac stamens which have the filaments 8-9 mm long. In R. cedarbergensis the leaves are usually two and not sticky, the flowers are pale pink with the outer much darker on the reverse and with a well-defined yellow cup, and the stamens are pale yellow with the filaments 5-6 mm long. Anatomically the leaves of R. lilacina are intermediate between those of R. rosea and R. cedarbergenis , with secondary bundles only in the lateral ribs.

Figures

Fig. 4. — Morphology of Romulea lilacina: detail of the stamens and style branches and transverse section of the leaf much enlarged (Manning 2252). Drawn by John MANNING.