Romulea austinii E. Phillips

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 : 87-88

35. Romulea austinii E. Phillips

Fl. Pl. Africa 3: pl. 90 (1932); M . P . de Vos, J . S . African Bot., Suppl. 9: 153 (1972); Fl. S . Africa 7(2), fasc. 2: 45 (1983). — Type: Austin 2572, South Africa, Western Cape, Laingsburg, Matjesfontein (holo-, PRE!; iso-, BOL!, K!) .

Plants 6-20 cm high, stem subterranean; corm with a wide, crescent-shaped basal ridge. Leaves 3-6, basal, bifacial, narrowly 4-grooved beneath and channelled above, 0.5-1 mm diam.; outer bracts with narrow membranous margins, sometimes submembranous below, inner bracts with wide brown-speckled membranous margins. Flowers yellow, with or without brown blotches in the throat, honey-scented, tepals elliptic, 14- 25 mm long; filaments 5-7 mm long, anthers 3-6 mm long. Fruiting peduncles curved, slightly flexuose. Flowering: May-July.

Romulea austinii grows on moist stony flats, with a range extending from the Hantamsberg at Calvinia in Northern Cape Province through the western and Little Karoo to the Uniondale District in Western Cape Province in the east. The species is recognized by the largely bifacial leaves with an adaxial channel extending for much of the length, wide basal ridge on the corm and submembranous inner bracts. Romulea austinii is allied to R. tortuosa , which also has bifacial leaves but in this species the basal ridge is vertical and often wider than the body of the corm, the leaves are usually flexuose and both outer and innner bracts are submembranous. Although there is no direct overlap in their range, R. austinii is easily confused with R. montana , which has similar yellow flowers and a corm with a rather broad, crescent-shaped ridge. Romulea montana is distinguished by its unifacial, terete leaves which have a pair of secondary veins in each rib, a stem which is sometimes exserted above the ground and outer bracts which are never submembranous in the lower part.

36. Romulea tortuosa (Licht. ex Roem. & Schult.) Baker

J. Linn. Soc. Bot. 16: 88 (1877) ; M. P. de Vos , J. S. African Bot., Suppl. 9: 154 (1972); Fl . S. Africa 7(2), fasc. 2: 45 (1983). — Ixia tortuosa Licht. ex Roem. & Schult., Syst. Veg. 1: 375 (1817). — Type: Lichtenstein s.n., South Africa, Western Cape, without precise locality (holo-, B) .

Plants mostly 3-6 cm high, stem subterranean; corm laterally compressed, with a wide fan-like basal ridge. Leaves several, usually flexuose or twisted, bifacial, narrowly 4-grooved beneath and channelled almost throughout above, 0.5-1 mm diam.; outer and inner bracts membranous or submembranous, greenish at the tips. Flowers yellow with or without black marks or blotches in the throat, sweetly scented, tepals elliptic to oblanceolate, 10-40 mm long; filaments 3-10 mm long, anthers 3-10 mm long. Fruiting peduncles curved or coiled. Flowering: June-Sep. — Fig. 2C.

A particularly common plant in places, Romulea tortuosa is often seen in extensive colonies in open, stony and sandy ground flowering early in the season. Its sweetly fragrant flowers can often be smelled from some distance. The species is largely restricted to high-lying country above 1000 m along the edge of the interior plateau of the western half of South Africa. It is centred in the western Karoo along the Roggeveld Escarpment but occurs northwards to the Bokkeveld Escarpment and southwards through the Cold Bokkeveld to Matroosberg Station. Most recently an isolated colony has been discovered in the Breede River valley near Worcester. This locality is far below the usual elevation at which the species is encountered. The flowers in the Worcester colony are an unusual creamy color but the plants are otherwise typical. The species occurs also on the Kamiesberg in Namaqualand. In a curious coincidence DE VOS (1972) mistakenly located the collection Salter 668 (BOL) made “ 22 miles NE of Middelpost on the Leliefontein road” at the settlement of Leliefontein on the Kamiesberg instead of on the Roggeveld Escarpment where it had actually been found. More recently, however, this disjunct destribution was confirmed when the species was indeed discovered to grow on the Kamiesberg near the village of Leliefontein.

DE VOS recognized three subspecies based on flower size and tepal shape and markings but these three entities are not geographically separated and are better not recognized formally. Romulea tortuosa is readily recognized by its several twisted leaves which are channelled to the tips, by the compressed corm with a broad crescent-shaped ridge wider than the body of the corm and by the largely membranous outer bracts. An unusual fea- ture of the species seldom encountered elsewhere in the genus is the variation in style length. In common with most species of Romulea the style is usually relatively short, dividing opposite the anther apices, but in some populations it divides well above the anthers. The submembranous outer and inner bracts of series Tortuosae are particularly marked in R. tortuosa .

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.