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!Romulea gigantea Bég. Search in The Plant ListSearch in IPNISearch in Australian Plant Name IndexSearch in NYBG Virtual HerbariumSearch in Muséum national d'Histoire naturelleSearch in Type Specimen Register of the U.S. National HerbariumSearch in Virtual Herbaria AustriaSearch in JSTOR Plant ScienceSearch in SEINetSearch in African Plants Database at Geneva Botanical GardenAfrican Plants, Senckenberg Photo GallerySearch in Flora do Brasil 2020Search in Reflora - Virtual HerbariumSearch in Living Collections Decrease font Increase font Restore font
 

Published In: Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie 38: 333. 1907. (Bot. Jahrb. Syst.) Name publication detailView in BotanicusView in Biodiversity Heritage Library
 

Project Name Data (Last Modified On 6/6/2016)
Acceptance : Accepted
Taxon Profile     (Last Modified On 11/30/2016)
Description : Plants (50–)100–200  mm high. Corm ovoid, 7–15 mm diam., oblique with crescent-shaped basal ridge, tunics woody or cartilaginous, split into fine, parallel fibril-like teeth sharply bent over ridge, ultimately breaking into slender, hooked teeth 2–3 mm long. Stem short, subterranean or exserted up to 20 mm. Leaves 5 to 7, lower 2 basal, compressed-cylindric, narrowly 4-grooved, 1–3 mm diam. Peduncles mostly 3 to 5, angled, erect in fruit; outer bracts green with narrow, colourless membranous margins, 10–20 mm long, closely ribbed (± 8 veins/mm), inner bracts with wide brown-flecked membranous margins. Flowers white to pale pink or blue with or without darker median line, with greenish yellow cup, outer tepals green and ± irregularly marked on reverse; perianth tube funnel-shaped, 2–3 mm long; tepals elliptic, 10–15 × 3–4 mm. Filaments 3–7 mm long, puberulous or pilose basally, pale yellow; anthers 3–4 mm long, yellow. Style dividing shortly below anther apices. Capsules oblong, 8–10 mm long. Flowering time: Sept.–Oct.
Country : South Africa
South African Province : Eastern Cape, Western Cape
Distribution and ecology : extending along the southern coast from Kleinmond in Western Cape eastward to Port Alfred in Eastern Cape; on damp grassy flats or along salt marshes.
Diagnosis : a polyploid species like R. pratensis and distinguished from it by the corm tunics splitting on the crescent-shaped basal ridge into slender, hooked teeth not aggregated into clusters, and by the uniformly green bracts. Plants of R. gigantea with smaller basal ridges on the corms may be confused with R. autumnalis but that species has almost pointed corms with straight teeth converging on the very narrow basal ridge, and the inner bracts have colourless, not brown-flecked membranous margins.

 


 

Specimens whose coordinates are enclosed in square brackets [ ] have been mapped to a standard reference mark based on political units.
 
 
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