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(Last Modified On 2/10/2017)
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Acceptance
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Accepted
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(Last Modified On 2/15/2017)
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Description:
Plants small, solitary, usually few branched, 150–400 mm high, with membranous, obtuse to truncate cataphylls. Corm ca. 15 mm diam.; tunics brown, of medium to fine fibers. Foliage leaves 2, or second leaf cauline and vestigial, lower leaf chanelled, 2–5 mm wide, as long or shortly exceeding rhipidia, second leaf short, often bract-like or well developed and exceeding rhipidia, 20–100 mm long, occasionally also exceeding rhipidia, sheath very short, 2–5 mm long. Rhipidial spathes subequal, green, margins membranous, rarely dry, with brown tips; inner 20–35 mm long, outer slightly shorter. Flowers blue with orange nectar guides; outer tepals 18–26 mm long, lanceolate, limbs slightly longer than claws, spreading; inner tepals 15–18 mm long. Filaments ca. 5 mm long, free in upper 1\3; anthers ca. 4.5 mm long. Ovary 3-5 mm long; style branches ca. 5 mm long, crests up to 5 mm. Capsules ovoid-truncate, to 8 mm long; seeds small, angular. Flowering time: April to May north of the equator in Kenya, Uganda, and Sudan; December to January south of the equator.
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Country:
Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan
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Distribution and ecology:
in southern South Sudan, western Kenya, Uganda, and central and western Tanzania; in short grass and often in seasonally waterlogged ground, blooming soon after the start of the rainy season.
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Diagnosis:
Moraea afro-orientalis is closely allied to M. carsonii and was until 1976 included in this species. It differs, however, in several respects and is distinctive in overall habit, with prominent membranous cataphylls, short stem and few, often clustered branches. Most plants have only a single comparatively short and erect foliage leaf, inserted below ground level in contrast with the two long, flaccid leaves in M. carsonii. In the southern part of its range, in central and western Tanzania, M. afro-orientalis often has two leaves, but when this is the case, the upper, cauline leaf is always distinctive in having a very short sheath (2–5 mm), contrasting with the more usual longer sheath (10–20 mm) in M. carsonii and its other relatives. In the northern populations the second leaf is reduced to a bract-like structure, often with a short free apex, also with a very short sheath.
Moraea afro-orientalis shares the distinctive, very short leaf with a second tropical African species, M. iringensis, which has a larger flower and a long ovary which is included in the spathes. Related M. callista has two well developed leaves, and a large striking flower with blue and white, fully reflexed tepals. Both these species occur locally in southwestern and central Tanzania on the southern extremity of the range of M. afro-orientalis.
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