Tropicos | Name - !!Geissorhiza ornithogaloides (Licht. ex Roem. & Schult.) Klatt

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Iridaceae in sub-Saharan Africa

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!!Geissorhiza ornithogaloides (Licht. ex Roem. & Schult.) Klatt

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Published In: Linnaea 34: 656. 1866. (Linnaea)

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

Acceptance : Accepted

Taxon Profile (Last Modified On 9/8/2016)

Description : Plants small, 40–70(–100) mm high. Corm either ± ovoid or bell-shaped with broad flat base, 4–6 mm at widest diam.; tunics medium brown, concentric, either fragmenting into elliptic or irregular sections when bell-shaped and lower margins minutely serrated. Stem ± erect, usually branching from cauline leaves. Leaves usually 4, lower 2 basal, linear to lanceolate, erect to falcate, 1–3 mm wide, flat, upper two leaves cauline and sheathing below, sheaths often inflated. Spike 1 (-rarely 2)-flowered; bracts green, becoming dry above, 7–10 mm long. Flowers actinomorphic, clear yellow, rotate; perianth tube 2–4(–5) mm long, included in bracts; tepals obovate, (6–)8–15(–18) × 3.5–6.0 mm. Filaments erect, equal, 2–4 mm long; anthers 3–6 mm long, yellow; pollen yellow. Style dividing opposite apex of anthers, branches 2–3(–4) mm long. Capsules obovate, 7–9 mm long, usually exceeding bracts. Chromosome number 2n = 26. Flowering time: mid August to early October.

Country : South Africa

South African Province : Western Cape

Distribution and ecology : extending in Western Cape from the Koudeberg near Wuppertal in the northern Cederberg south to Paarl and eastward through the Worcester District and interior southern Cape to Companies Drift in the Long Kloof in Eastern Cape; on stony sandstone and clay flats and slopes.

Diagnosis : a dwarf and typically slender species, Geissorhiza ornithogaloides is recognized by the bright yellow flowers, unusual in the genus. It is morphologically variable and even within populations plants may be more robust and have much larger flower than others, the extremes seemingly almost different species. The vegetative morphology is, however, quite uniform, with plants always having spikes with either one or two flowers, two narrow, plane, basal leaves and two cauline and partly sheathing leaves. The corms are of two types: the interior and eastern populations, subsp. ornithogaloides, have small ellipsoid corms with concentric tunics of the type characteristic of subg. Weihea, whereas the southwestern populations, subsp. flava, have bell-shaped corms with a flat base and minutely serrated margins. The two sets of populations otherwise appear identical.

Geissorhiza ornithogaloides is most closely related to G. malmesburiensis, which is broadly similar to subsp. flava of that species in the yellow flowers and bell-shaped corms but differs in having somewhat larger, cupped flowers, the perianth tube ± 4 mm long, tepals mostly 18–20(–25) mm long and filaments 7–10 mm long, yet retains its very dwarfed habit.

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1	Corm ± ellipsoid, tapering at both ends, not campanulate in outline; and lower margins of tunics not or rarely slightly serrated	Geissorhiza ornithogaloides (Licht. ex Roem. & Schult.) Klatt subsp. ornithogaloides
+	Corm bell-shaped with flat base; the lower margins of the tunics minutely serrated	Geissorhiza ornithogaloides subsp. flava