Romulea leipoldtii Marais

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 : 78

12. Romulea leipoldtii Marais

Curtis’s Bot. Mag. 175: pl. 460 (1964); M . P . de Vos, J . S . African Bot., Suppl. 9: 96 (1972); Fl. S . Africa 7(2), fasc. 2: 25 (1983). — Type: Leipoldt s. n., South Africa, Western Cape, Warm Baths, Citrusdal (holo-, K!) .

Plants 10-30 cm high, stem reaching 5-30 cm above ground; corm with a crescent-shaped basal ridge. Leaves 4-6, lower 2 basal, narrowly 4- grooved, c. 1 mm diam.; outer bracts green with hardly visible membranous margins, inner bracts with wide colorless or brown-speckled membranous margins. Flowers white to cream with yellow to orange cup and lower part of the tepals, sweetly scented, tepals elliptic, 18-35 mm long; filaments 5-8 mm long, anthers 5-8 mm long. Fruiting peduncles bent, later erect. Flowering: Sep.-Oct.

Romulea leipoldtii occurs in wet habitats in sandy ground from the Bokkeveld Mountains in Northern Cape Province in the north to Klipheuwel near Malmesbury in Western Cape Province in the south. It is closely allied to Romulea tabularis but has larger, cream to white flowers with a dark yellow to orange center. Particularly distinctive is that the tepals are white only in the upper half; the lower half are the same yellow to orange color as the floral cup.