Romulea stellata 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 : 87

33. Romulea stellata M.P. de Vos

J. S. African Bot., Suppl. 9: 291 (1972); Fl. S. Africa 7(2), fasc. 2: 71 (1983). — Type: de Vos 2171, South Africa, Western Cape, Pakhuis Pass (holo-, NBG!) .

Plants 3-5 cm high, stem subterranean; corm with a crescent-shaped basal ridge. Leaves 1 or 2, basal, narrowly 4-grooved, 0.5 mm diam.; outer bracts submembranous, inner bracts with narrow colorless membranous margins. Flowers hypocrateriform, violet or white with yellow throat, unscented, perianth tube cylindrical, 11-17 mm long, tepals elliptic, 7-11 mm long; filaments glabrous, 2-3.5 mm long, anthers 2-3 mm long. Fruiting peduncle short, suberect. Flowering: May-July.

The montane Romulea stellata grows in shallow, seasonally waterlogged sand on rocky, sandstone pavement in Western Cape Province from the Gifberg to the northern Cedarberg. It is a curious plant, taxonomically isolated in the genus and superficially resembling a species of the related genus Syringodea . It is distinctive in its tiny flower, cylindrical perianth tube and one, or at most two, filiform leaves. Although allied by DE VOS with R. syringodeoflora in subgenus Lomurea on the basis of the similar perianth tube the two species differ markedly in their corms and their floral similarities must be convergent.

— Ser. TORTUOSAE