Romulea pratensis M.P. de Vos

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 : 75-76

6. Romulea pratensis M.P. de Vos

J. S. African Bot., Suppl. 9: 198 (1972); Fl. S. Africa 7(2), fasc. 2: 35 (1983). — Type: Dyer 1619, South Africa, Eastern Cape, Grahamstown (holo-, GRA; iso-, PRE!) .

Plants 12-25 cm high, stem subterranean; corm with a high, crescent-shaped basal ridge, with relatively broad teeth sharply bent over. Leaves 5-8, basal, narrowly 4-grooved, 1-2 mm diam.; outer bracts usually submembranous in the lower half with hardly visible membranous margins, inner bracts with wide colorless or brown-speckled membranous margins. Flowers white, lilac or rose with greenish yellow cup, tepals elliptic, 8-15 mm long; filaments 3-4 mm long, anthers 3-4 mm long. Fruiting peduncles curved, later erect. Flowering: July-Sep.

Romulea pratensis is a species of grassy slopes often along the southeastern Cape coast, extending from Avontuur in the west to Alexandria in the east. The corm tunics are somewhat anomalous in the subgenus in being divided into relatively broad teeth along the basal ridge and have caused difficulty in placing the species. We have reached the conclusion that DE VOS was correct in her later account of the genus in allying the species with R. gigantea , which has the tunics divided into much finer teeth, but we differ from her in the subgeneric placement. She placed the two species at the beginning of her section Roseae in the equivalent of our subgenus Spatalanthus while we place the species in section Romulea of subgenus Romulea . Both R. gigantea and R. pratensis are polyploid species, with the apparently derived basic chromosome number of x = 11.

ROMULEA subg. ROMULEA sect. 2. CILIATAE (M.P. de Vos) J.C. Manning & Goldblatt, comb. et stat. nov.

Subsect. Ciliatae M.P. de Vos, J. S. African Bot.,

Suppl. 9: 62 (1972). — Type: Romuleae flava (Lam.)

M.P. de Vos. Corm with an oblique, crescent-shaped basal

ridge; ridge edges fringed, consisting of fine parallel fibrils. Leaves sometimes without secondary bundles, occasionally with vascular girders and marginal strands but lacking rib marginal bundles.

— Ser. CILIATAE