Tropicos | Name - !Bobartia rufa Strid

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Iridaceae in sub-Saharan Africa

African Iridaceae > Iridaceae > Bobartia > Bobartia rufa

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!Bobartia rufa Strid

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Project Name Data (Last Modified On 6/6/2016)

Acceptance : Accepted

Taxon Profile (Last Modified On 4/12/2017)

Description: Plants 500–900 mm high, sometimes forming clumps. Rhizome compact and corm-like, 10–16 mm diam. Stem formed by basal internode only, terete, 1–3 mm diam., with fine stomatiferous furrows. Foliage leaves 2–6 in a basal tuft, shorter than flowering stem, terete, resembling stem but slightly thinner. Rhipidia suberect, up to ± 50, grouped indistinctly fascicles in a crowded, obconical, ± flat-topped head, subtended by suberect, fibrous, grey, expanded bract, following bract similar, together partially sheathing synflorescence; pedicels subglabrous; rhipidial bracts and outer spathe usually dark reddish brown, acuminate, 10–35 mm long, ± concealing inner spathe, this not or scarcely longer than outer, straw-coloured. Flowers yellow; tepals free, elliptic, outer 15–19 × 7–9 mm, inner ± 1/2 as wide. Filaments 3–4.5 mm long; anthers ± 4.5 mm long. Ovary shortly exserted, smooth or rugulose; style ± 2.5 mm long, branches 4–5.5 mm long. Capsules exserted, obovoid, smooth or tubercled, 5–8 mm long, dark to reddish brown. Flowering time: Sept.–Nov.

Country: South Africa

South African Province: Western Cape

Distribution and ecology: endemic to the coastal and near interior mountains of the Atlantic coast of Western Cape, from Pakhuis Pass in the Cederberg through the Cold Bokkeveld and Olifants River Mtns to the Piketberg and Hex River Mtns; on sandstone slopes in fynbos from 900 to 1 400 m.

Diagnosis: recognised by the obconical, ± flat-topped synflorescence partially sheathed by a pair of grey, fibrous spathe-like bracts, the rhipidia with conspicuous, acuminate, dark reddish brown bracts and lower rhipidial spathe not much shorter than the the inner spathe and concealing it. The capsule are either smooth or tubercled.

Bobartia rufa is clearly closely allied to B. fasciculata, sharing with it a similar fibrous spathe and ± tubercled capsules, and remarkably narrow inner tepals, ± half as wide as the outer. The two species are sympatric on the Olifants River Mtns and may be confused there. B. fasciculata is distinguished by its globose inflorescence with more clearly fasciculate rhipidia with greyish or brown outer rhipidial spathes much shorter than the inner rhipidial spathes.