Pauridia verna (Hilliard & B.L.Burtt) Snijman & Kocyan (2013: 31)

Snijman, Deirdre A., 2014, A taxonomic revision of the genus Pauridia (Hypoxidaceae) in southern Africa, Phytotaxa 182 (1), pp. 1-114 : 107-108

29. Pauridia verna (Hilliard & B.L.Burtt) Snijman & Kocyan (2013: 31)

Bas.:— Saniella verna Hilliard & Burtt (1978: 71) . Type (holotype):— LESOTHO. Black Mountains, between Sani and Mokhotlong, ca. 3050 m, 5 November 1973, Hilliard & Burtt 7076 ( E! [image], isotypes NBG!, NU)

Plants 2–4 cm tall. Corm somewhat ovoid, 5–8 mm diam., fibreless proximally, extending into a short, dark brown papery sheath distally; roots arising from proximal third of corm. Cataphylls absent at flowering. Leaves (3)4–6, membranous and shortly sheathing at base for up to 3 cm, spreading, linear,40–80 × 2–4 mm, tapering evenly upwards, shallowly carinate, slightly succulent, entire. Inflorescences 1 in flower at a time, 1-flowered, ca. as long as leaves; scape hidden by leaf sheaths, ca. 4 × 1–2 mm, laterally compressed, whitish; bract 1, linear, inserted at ovary base, ca. 15 × 2 mm, whitish, somewhat membranous. Flower sessile, partly subterranean, more or less rotate, white with yellow throat, midveins backed with yellowish green on outer tepals, unscented; perigone tube arising from a slender, elongated, ovary beak, somewhat bowl-shaped, 2–4 × 2–3 mm; tepals 6, elliptic, 14–25 mm long, outer 4–8 mm wide, minutely mucronate, inner 2.5–4.0 mm wide. Stamens 6, suberect, outer shorter than inner or subequal, yellow; filaments inserted near base of perigone tube, outer 2.5–3.5 mm long, inner 3–4 mm, ca. as long as anthers; anthers linear, latrorse, 2.5–4.0 mm, pollen yellow. Ovary subterranean, narrowly ovoid, compressed ventrally, 3–5 × 1.5 mm, 3-locular, distal beak 20–47 mm long; style 3.0– 6.5 mm long; stigma branches suberect, linear, 2.0–3.5 × 0.5 mm, ca. equalling stamens, yellow, densely papillose. Capsule partially subterranean, beaked, walls thin, disintegrating irregularly. Seeds depressed-ellipsoid, ca. 0.8 × 0.6 mm; testa black, outer periclinal cell walls densely colliculate. Flowering period: October–November.

Distribution and habitat:—Endemic to the summit plateau of the Drakensberg, Pauridia verna extends from Mont-Aux-Sources on the Lesotho /KwaZulu-Natal border in the north to the Blue Mountain Pass, central Lesotho, southwards to Naude’s Nek and Ben MacDhui in Eastern Cape ( Fig. 43 ). Scattered colonies are found in small, seasonally wet, bare patches of basaltic gravel, areas fringing tarns and along marshy drainage lines in short, damp turf at elevations ranging from 2550 to 3050 meters above sea-level.

Diagnostic features:—The geographic range of Pauridia verna is widely disjunct from that of its sister species P. alticola , which is found along the southwestern section of the Great Escarpment, Northern Cape and in the Cederberg and Kouebokkeveld, Western Cape. P. verna , like P. alticola , has a solitary-flowered inflorescence, distinguished by a short, entirely subterranean scape and the absence of a pedicel. Thus the flower, with its small, yellow, bowl-shaped tube and spreading, white tepals, is sessile and only the well-developed ovary beak, 20–47 mm long, holds the perigone clear of the ground, while the ovary itself remains buried until fruiting. Although remarkably similar in their floral morphology the two species are easily distinguished from each other by differences in the corms and seeds. P. verna has a fibreless corm, sometimes partially covered distally by brown papery sheaths and the seeds have a colliculate testa, unlike P. alticola in which the corm is heavily covered by fibrous tunics and the seed is densely covered by elongated trichomes.

This attractive plant is one of several other hardy dwarf geophytes, such as Rhodohypoxis rubella ( Baker 1897: 531) Nel (1914b: 300) (Hypoxidaceae) , Moraea alpina Goldblatt (1973: 255) and Hesperantha crocopsis Hilliard & Burtt (1979: 302) (both Iridaceae ), that survive the extreme conditions of repeated freezing and thawing that prevail on the summit of the Drakensberg Escarpment.

Additional specimens examined:— LESOTHO. 5 km from Blue Mountain Pass (QDS: 2927 BD), 2 November 1977, Schmitz 7383 ( PRE!) ; Blue Mountain Pass (QDS: 2927 BD), October 1978, Schmitz 8367 ( PRE!) . SOUTH AFRICA. KwaZulu-Natal: Sani Pass summit, tarn in front of Lesotho border post (QDS: 2929 CB), 1 November 2006, Manning 3074 ( NBG!) . Eastern Cape: Barkly East District, Ben MacDhui (QDS: 3027 DB), October 1978, Hilliard & Burtt 14686 ( PRE!) .

Figures

FIGURE 43 Distribution map for Pauridiaalticola (dots) from Northern and Western Cape, South Africa and P. verna (squares) from Lesotho and KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape, South Africa.