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!Moraea brevistyla (Goldblatt) Goldblatt Search in The Plant ListSearch in IPNISearch in Australian Plant Name IndexSearch in NYBG Virtual HerbariumSearch in Muséum national d'Histoire naturelleSearch in Type Specimen Register of the U.S. National HerbariumSearch in Virtual Herbaria AustriaSearch in JSTOR Plant ScienceSearch in SEINetSearch in African Plants Database at Geneva Botanical GardenAfrican Plants, Senckenberg Photo GallerySearch in Flora do Brasil 2020Search in Reflora - Virtual HerbariumSearch in Living Collections Decrease font Increase font Restore font
 

Published In: Annals of Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens 14: 71. 1986. (Ann. Kirstenbosch Bot. Gard.) Name publication detail
 

Project Name Data (Last Modified On 6/6/2016)
Acceptance : Accepted
Taxon Profile     (Last Modified On 7/11/2016)
Description: Plants mostly 250–500 mm high. Corm ± 15 mm diam.; tunics of dark brown, relatively fine, netted fibres. Stem of 2 or 3 aerial internodes, several-branched, sheathing leaves with dry brown, attenuate apices, 45–60 mm long. Foliage leaf solitary, ± basal, linear, channelled, 2–4 mm wide, ± erect, exceeding stem, trailing distally. Rhipidial spathes with dry, attenuate apices, inner 40–50 mm, outer ± 1/2 as long. Flowers long-lived, white, sometimes flushed blue to mauve with age, tepals grey to pale purple on reverse, outer tepal limbs with nectar guides of small brown dots at bases, lanceolate, usually half reflexed, inner tepals and style branches yellow finely dotted green or brown; outer tepals 18–20 mm long, claws ascending, ± as long as claws, bearded on inner surface, papillate or smooth on outer surface; inner tepals 3-lobed, lobes laxly spreading, lateral lobes slender, 8–10 mm long, obtuse, erect, inner lobe linear, acute, 4–5 mm long. Filaments 5–7 mm long, united in a slender column, free in upper 1 mm; anthers 4–5 mm long, often exceeding stigma lobes, yellow; pollen yellow. Ovary ± cylindric, 5–6 mm long, usually exserted; style branches 4 mm long, crests linear, 2–3 mm long. Capsules club-shaped-ovoid, ± 10 mm long. Seeds unknown. Flowering time: late November to March.
Country: South Africa, Lesotho
South African Province: Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga
Distribution and ecology: extending in eastern southern Africa from the Mpumalanga–northern KwaZulu-Natal border through western Free State and Lesotho to Kokstad in southern KwaZulu-Natal; fairly common in middle and upper elevation grassland.
Diagnosis: Moraea brevistyla is recognized but the small white, sometimes blue to mauve flushed flowers, the outer tepals only 18–20 mm long and with a slightly reflexed limb 9–10 mm long. The characteristic inner tepals have limbs consisting of three linear, subequal lobes with the inner lobe spreading and arching upward distally. It is closely allied to the Mpumalanga and Swaziland M. pubiflora with has strikingly similar, but substantially larger white flowers, with for example outer tepals 25–30 mm long and a disproportionately long filaments with a column about 13 mm long (vs ± 6 mm in M. brevistyla). M. pubiflora also has unusual scabrid or velvet outer surfaces of the large outer tepals whereas M. brevistyla the reverse of the outer tepals smooth or minutely papillate. The ranges of the two overlap in the Wakkerstroom area of the Mpumalanga–KwaZulu-Natal border but the two species remain distinct morphologically. M. brevistyla was first described as a subspecies of M. pubiflora but the absence of intermediates where their ranges overlap has been taken as evidence that they are better regarded as separate species. M. brevistyla is parapatric in the Sentinel area of the northern high Drakensberg with a second species, the very similar M. vigilans and their differences are outlined below.

 


 

Specimens whose coordinates are enclosed in square brackets [ ] have been mapped to a standard reference mark based on political units.
 
 
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