Tropicos | Name - !Lapeirousia anceps (L. f.) Ker Gawl.

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Iridaceae in sub-Saharan Africa

African Iridaceae > Iridaceae > Lapeirousia > Lapeirousia anceps

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!Lapeirousia anceps (L. f.) Ker Gawl.

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

Acceptance : Accepted

Taxon Profile (Last Modified On 6/16/2016)

Description: Plants 100–300 mm high. Corm bell-shaped, red-brown, 8–10 mm diam.; tunics lightly ridged, rim bluntly lobed. Stem usually repeatedly divaricately branched, compressed and elliptic in cross section, 2- or 3-angled, angles slightly winged, wings weakly serrated. Leaves 5–7, lowermost usually longer and wider than others, (40–)80–200 × 3–15 mm, ascending to falcate, lanceolate, ribbed, remaining leaves shorter, mostly crowded near base, becoming increasing bract-like above. Inflorescences (2–)4–8-flowered spikes, at first 2-ranked, ultimately spiral; outer bracts grey-green, (5–)6–10 mm long, apices and margins often tinged red, channelled, folded along upper midline, acute in profile; inner 3–5 mm long, transparent with two green keels. Flowers zygomorphic, white to beige or faintly flushed pink, reverse of tepals and tube pink, lower 3 tepals each with red mark in lower midline, and usually with small, claw-like cusp near base; perianth tube narrow and cylindric, weakly arched distally, (20–)40–80 mm long (3–6 times as long as tepals); tepals narrowly lanceolate to ± linear, acute, dorsal largest, 12–14 × 4–5 mm, erect or recurved when fully open, upper lateral 12–14 × ± 3 mm, widely separated from dorsal, lower tepals united basally for 2–3 mm, free parts 12–14 mm long, extended horizontally. Stamens unilateral, ± erect; filaments ± 6 mm long, exserted ± 4 mm from tube; anthers parallel, ± 2.5 mm long, pollen grey-blue or white. Style arching adaxial to anthers, dividing between base and middle of anthers; branches 2–3 mm long, divided for 1/2 their length and recurved. Capsules ± barrel-shaped, 9–10 × ± 7 mm. Seeds red-brown, globose, smooth, somewhat flattened at chalazal end, ± 1.5 mm diam. Chromosome number 2n = 18. Flowering time: (late September–)October, to late November at higher elevations and in the south.

Country: South Africa

South African Province: Northern Cape, Western Cape

Distribution and ecology: with one of the widest distribution ranges of the southern African species of the genus, extending from the sandy coastal plain of central Namaqualand near Hondeklip Bay in Northern Cape southward through the mountains and coastal plain of Western Cape to near Mossel Bay in the east; almost always in deep sandy soils, sometimes growing among tufts of Restionaceae, flowering profusely following fires.

Diagnosis: Lapeirousia anceps is readily recognized by the combination of short floral bracts and white to ivory flowers, pink on the outside of the tepals and tube, and usually relatively long perianth tube, mostly 50–80 mm but occasionally only 20–40 mm, and narrow tepals 3–4 mm wide (sometimes the dorsal up to 5 mm). The lower tepals usually have a claw-like projection just above the base. The bell-shaped corms have either bluntly lobed or minutely serrated basal rims. The species evidently has no close allies: the short floral bracts, 5–10 mm long, are particularly surprising in view of its long perianth tube.

General Notes: first described in 1782 by the younger Linnaeus, Lapeirousia anceps was based partly in a collection made by the Swedish Anders Sparrman, but included aspects of a second species, now L. fabricii. Later botanists included not only L. fabricii but also L. jacquinii under the name L. anceps and it was only after 1900 that it became evident that three separate species were included under that name. Despite their similarly coloured and long tubed flowers, L. anceps and L. fabricii are probably only distantly related, the obconic corms of L. fabricii having prominent marginal teeth are quite different from those of L. anceps. Their floral similarities are evidently due to convergence for long-proboscid fly pollination.

Pollination: several studies have shown that L. anceps is pollinated by species of long-tongued flies, either nemestrinids or tabanids. The remarkable range of perianth tube lengths in the species is closely correlated with variation in proboscis length in the pollinators, thus shorter tubed populations are pollinated by flies with correspondingly shorter probosces.