Romulea tabularis Eckl. ex Bég.

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 : 77-78

11. Romulea tabularis Eckl. ex Bég.

Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 38: 337 (1907); M . P . de Vos, J . S . African Bot., Suppl. 9: 93 (1972); Fl. S . Africa 7(2), fasc. 2: 23 (1983). — Type: Ecklon & Zeyher 595 Irid. 199, South Africa, Western Cape, Cape of Good Hope (holo-, B) .

Plants 10-35(-60) cm high, stem reaching 2-30 cm above ground; corm with a crescentshaped basal ridge. Leaves 3-5, lower 1 or 2 basal, narrowly 4-grooved, 1-2 mm diam.; outer bracts with hardly visible membranous margins, inner bracts submembranous with wide brown-speckled membranous margins. Flowers blue to white with yellow cup and lower half of the tepals, sometimes fragrant, tepals elliptic, 10-28 mm long; filaments 3-6 mm long, anthers 3-6 mm long. Fruiting peduncles arching, later erect. Flowering: July-Oct. — Fig. 2A .

Romulea tabularis extends from coastal northern Namaqualand to Cape Agulhas and occurs in wet, often waterlogged sandy soils or on limestone flats. It and R. leipoldtii comprise a vicariant species-pair distinguished by their bicolored tepals, the lower half of which is the same color as the central cup. Romulea tabularis has relatively small flowers with the distal half of the tepals usually pale blue or cream to whitish. Both R. tabularis and R. leipoldtii can also be distinguished from R. schlechteri by the bract margins which are always streaked with dark brown.

Figures

Fig. 2. — Flowers of Romulea species: A, R. tabularis; B, R. saldanhensis; C, R. tortuosa; D, R. sabulosa; E, R. eximia; F, R. sulphurea; G, R. namaquensis; H, R. komsbergensis.