Tropicos | Name - !Ixia paniculata D. Delaroche

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Iridaceae in sub-Saharan Africa

African Iridaceae > Iridaceae > Ixia > Ixia paniculata

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!Ixia paniculata D. Delaroche

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

Acceptance : Accepted

Taxon Profile (Last Modified On 8/30/2016)

Description : Plants 500–650 mm high. Corm 15–20 mm diam., often bearing cormlets on short, thick stolons from base; tunics of fine netted fibres. Stem simple or often with 1 or 2 ascending to horizontal branches, subtended by dry, cuspidate, brown-flecked bracts and prophylls 1.5–3.0 mm long. Leaves 5 or 6 in a loose fan, lower leaves becoming dry and brown at flowering, lanceolate, often slightly twisted in upper half, mostly 4–7 mm wide, reaching to middle or to near top of stem; margins and main vein slightly thickened. Spike crowded, 8–16-flowered, branches mostly 3–8-flowered; bracts membranous, translucent below but sparsely to closely flecked with rust-brown distally, (7–)9–15 mm long, outer with 1 prominent vein, acute or obscurely 3-lobed with a prominent central tooth, inner 2-veined, ± as long as outer or slightly longer or shorter, 2-veined, forked apically. Flowers pale yellow to creamy beige, lower fifth of tepals sometimes darker, unscented; perianth tube cylindric, 35–65(–75) mm long, widened in upper 3–5 mm; tepals oblong-elliptic, 16–25 mm long, outer ± 6 mm, inner ± 4 mm wide. Filaments 5–6 mm long, included (rarely partly exserted), inserted 8–10 mm below mouth of tube; anthers 4.5–7.0 mm long, dark purple (rarely pale), half to fully included with tips ± 1 mm below mouth of tube, rarely fully exserted. Style dividing opposite lower to upper third of anthers, rarely opposite anther tips or up to 3 mm beyond them, branches ± 2 mm long. Flowering time: mid-November to early December.

Country : South Africa

South African Province : Northern Cape, Western Cape

Distribution and ecology : extending from the Bokkeveld Mtns, north of Nieuwoudtville in Northern Cape to the coast of Western Cape near Kleinmond, thus throughout the western half of Western Cape; in both in montane and lowland habitats, usually on sandy or stony sandstone ground in seasonally wet situations, either in marshes, seeps, drainage lines or along streams.

Diagnosis : Ixia paniculata is distinctive in its fairly tall stature and remarkably long-tubed flowers, the tube usually 40–65 mm long, with the darkly coloured anthers included in the tube (sometimes partly or rarely fully exserted). The perianth is pale yellow to pale beige with the undersides of the tepals often flushed with pink or red. Plants from inland in the north of its range, from Piketberg to the Bokkeveld Mtns have tubes 45–65 mm long, those from the coast north of Cape Town are consistently long-tubed, 65–75 mm long, but those from the Cape Peninsula and the False Bay coast have shorter tubes 35–55 mm long. Collections from the Cape Flats stand out in their pale anthers and style dividing ± 2 mm beyond the anther tips. In other populations the style divides between the lower and upper third of the anthers, exceptionally opposite the anther tips. The anthers, usually dark brown or almost black, are typically 5.0–6.5 mm long and half exserted, but sometimes fully included. The Cape Flats plants are particularly unusual, not only in the short perianth tube and long style but the pale anthers are only 4.5 mm long.

General Notes : a surprising hybrid, represented by a single clump of plants, has been recorded near Kleinmond. It represents a cross between Ixia paniculata and I. sarmentosa, a short-tubed species of sect. Ixia. Hybrids in Ixia are rare in the wild and there are no other records of intersectional hybrids in the genus.

Pollination : flowers of Ixia paniculata are adapted for pollination by long-proboscid flies and along the Western Cape Atlantic coast are pollinated by Moegistorhynchus longirostris. At least in the Bokkeveld Mtns plants set seed in the absence of its pollinator and are thus facultatively autogamous.