Romulea barkerae 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 : 85

28. Romulea barkerae M.P. de Vos

J. S. African Bot., Suppl. 9: 106 (1972); Fl. S. Africa 7(2), fasc. 2: 28 (1983). — Type: Barker s.n., South Africa, Western Cape, Vredenburg, Cape Columbine (holo-, NBG 273 /67!) .

Plants 12-20 cm high, stem subterranean or reaching 3 cm above ground; corm with a crescent-shaped basal ridge. Leaves 2-3, lower 1 basal, broadly 2-grooved, T-shaped in section, 1.5-2.5 mm diam.; outer bracts with hardly visible membranous margins, inner bracts membranous, sometimes with reddish veins. Flowers white with large black blotches edged in yellow in the throat, unscented, tepals oblanceolate, 18-28 mm long, outer tepals uniformly green on the outside; filaments 5-6 mm long, anthers 5-6 mm long. Fruiting peduncles recurved, later erect. Flowering: July-Aug.

Romulea barkerae was long known only from the type collection but recent collections have extended its range to Paternoster in the north to a short distance south of Saldanha Bay in the south, still a very narrow range. It is one of the few true edaphic endemic in the genus and is restricted to coastal limestone outcrops. Although evidently allied to Romulea flava and sharing with it a single basal leaf and submembranous inner bracts, R. barkerae is distinctive in many features. The leaves have only two broad grooves resulting in a T-shaped cross section with a narrow upper suface and broad lower surface. This is unlike the leaf structure of any other species of Romulea and the white flowers with large, dark brown-black blotches outlined in yellow are also unique.

— Ser. MINUTIFLORAE