Romulea citrina Baker

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 : 82-83

21. Romulea citrina Baker

Handbk. Irideae : 100 (1892); M . P . de Vos , J . S . African Bot., Suppl. 9: 111 (1972); Fl. S . Africa 7(2), fasc. 2: 28 (1983). — Type: H . Bolus 6619, South Africa, Northern Cape, Namaqualand , near Modderfontein (holo-, K!; iso-, BOL!, GRA) .

Plants mostly 8-12 cm high, stem subterranean or reaching 2 cm above ground; corm with a crescent-shaped basal ridge. Leaves 3-4, the lower 2 basal, filiform, narrowly 4-grooved, compressedcylindric, curving outward; outer bracts with narrow membranous margins, inner bracts with broad brown-streaked membranous margins. Flowers yellow to pale orange, unscented, tepals elliptic, 20-32 mm long; filaments 5-8 mm long, anthers 4-7 mm long. Fruiting peduncles at first curved, later suberect. Flowering: Aug.-Sep.

Romulea citrina occurs in wet sites in Namaqualand, and although most common in the Kamiesberg, also occurs at lower elevations around Grootvlei, west of Kamieskroon. It appears to be most closely related to R. montana , with which it is easily confused, although their ranges do not overlap. In R. montana the basal ridge of the corm is very pronounced and often wider than the body of the corm and the fruiting peduncles are widely spreading. Possibly more significantly but less obviously the two species differ in leaf anatomy, with only R. citrina having sclerenchyma strands at the angles of the longitudinal grooves.