Published In:
Handbook of the Irideae 56. 1892. ( Handb. Irid.)  
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(Last Modified On 6/6/2016)
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Acceptance
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Accepted
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(Last Modified On 7/5/2016)
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Description:
Plants 150–450 mm high including leaf. Corm globose, 12–15 mm diam.; tunics of dark brown to black fibres. Stem erect or inclined, lowermost internode elongate with foliage leaf inserted well above ground, upper internodes much shorter, flexuous, few-branched, rarely simple, sheathing leaves green to dry, light brown, 25 mm long. Foliage leaf solitary, inserted well above ground, usually shortly exceeding stem, up to 200 mm long, narrowly channelled or terete. Rhipidial spathes green or becoming brown and dry above, attenuate, apices becoming lacerated, inner 25–35 mm long, outer ± 10 mm shorter. Flowers fugaceous, blue-mauve to violet, outer tepal limbs with yellow nectar guides edged dark mauve at bases, limbs reflexed to ± 35º; outer tepals 15–20 × ± 10 mm, claws ±1/2 to 1/3 as long as limbs; inner tepals linear-lanceolate, up to 15 × 4 mm. Filaments 4–5 mm long, united in lower 2–3 mm; anthers 4–5 mm long, yellow. Ovary ± ovoid, ± 4 mm long; style branches 5–6 mm long, crests ± 6 mm long. Capsules ovoid to club-shaped, 5–10 mm long. Seeds angled. Chromosome number 2n = 12. Flowering time: mostly November to January.
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Country:
South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi
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South African Province:
Limpopo, Mpumalanga
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Distribution and ecology:
extending from coastal KwaZulu-Natal to higher elevations in Mpumalanga and Limpopo, also in Zambia and Zimbabwe; in open grassland, often in stony sites.
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Diagnosis:
with moderate-sized, blue-mauve to violet flowers, only the outer tepals with nectar guides, and well developed style branches and crests, Moraea natalensis has unexceptional flowers for subg. Polyanthes. It stands out, however, in having a solitary foliage leaf inserted well above the ground on a stem with a long basal internode. The leaf is green at flowering and narrowly channelled, sometimes evidently terete but with the margins tightly inrolled. The few to several branches are short and somewhat crowded above the axil of the foliage leaf. This distinctive growth form is shared among the eastern southern Africa species of the subgenus only with M. inclinata, a taller plant, usually with darker violet flowers, green rhipidial spathes with the outer only about half as long as the inner and nearly globose capsules. In M. natalensis the rhipidial spathes are often almost dry at flowering with the outer spathe is only slightly shorter than the inner and the capsules are obovoid to club-shaped. The plants from Zambia described as M. ericiroseni differ hardly at all from typical M. natalensis but those described as M. parviflora from the Nylstroom area of Limpopo and currently included in M. natalensis are distinctive in their particularly slender habit and apparently smaller capsules.
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Specimens whose coordinates are enclosed in square brackets [ ] have been mapped to a standard reference mark based on political
units.
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Africa & Madagascar
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Zambia
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1200 m,
15°21'56"S 028°09'42"E,
25 January 1995,
Daniel K. Harder 2496
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Tanzania
Mbeya, Mbeya Rural:
1200 m,
08°50'00"S 033°20'00"E,
26 January 1990,
J.C. Lovett & Karen J. Sidwell 3989
(MO)
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Zambia
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1300 m,
[13°11'27"S 027°59'52"E],
25 December 1994,
Michael Graham Bingham 10215
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Zimbabwe
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[19°04'29"S 029°23'02"E],
1980,
Peter Goldblatt 5935
(MO)
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South Africa
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[28°34'22"S 023°49'34"E],
30 October 1994,
Peter Goldblatt & John C. Manning 10088
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