Tropicos | Name - !Hesperantha exiliflora Goldblatt

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Iridaceae in sub-Saharan Africa

African Iridaceae > Iridaceae > Hesperantha > Hesperantha exiliflora

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!Hesperantha exiliflora Goldblatt

Search in Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle

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

Acceptance : Accepted

Taxon Profile (Last Modified On 8/20/2016)

Description: Plants mainly 120–250(–300) mm high. Corm obconic, ± 8 mm diam.; tunics woody, soon breaking into elliptic segments tapering above into short points. Stem slender, unbranched. Leaves usually 4, lower 2 basal and longest, reaching to between upper 1/3 of stem and apex of spike, ± linear, 1.2–2.3 mm wide, firm, erect, main vein and margins lightly raised, hyaline when dry, third leaf inserted shortly above ground, largely sheathing, uppermost leaf entirely sheathing, ± bract-like, 12–32 mm long, inserted in middle to upper 1/3 of stem. Spike mostly 1–3-flowered, lax, ± straight; outer bract 6–8(–9.5) mm long, green, upper margin transparent, inner bract slightly shorter, ± membranous with 2 green keels. Flowers diurnal, rotate, pink, pale yellow in throat; perianth tube funnel-shaped, 3.5–5.0 mm long; tepals elliptic, spreading, 6–8 × ± 2.5 mm. Filaments suberect, ± 2.5 mm long; anthers ascending, 2.5–3.3 mm long, shortly tailed, yellow; pollen yellow. Style dividing below mouth of tube, branches 3.0–3.5 mm long, diverging, reaching to between middle of anthers to just beyond tips in closed flower. Flowering time: January and February.

Type specimen: Donald Killick - 4477 - MO - (BC:MO-202557/A:3804087)

Country: South Africa, Lesotho

South African Province: KwaZulu-Natal

Distribution and ecology: known only from the central and eastern Drakensberg plateau of Lesotho but possibly also in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa; in subalpine grassland, evidently in damp sites.

Diagnosis: the few known populations of Hesperantha exiliflora have remarkably small flowers, the perianth tube 3.5–5 mm long and the tepals 6–8 mm long and it is distinguished largely by these features. The only other species of pink-flowered Hesperantha from eastern southern Africa with comparably small flowers, H. ingeliensis, has tepals mostly 10–12 mm long and broader, falcate leaves, 5.5–7 mm wide, unlike the straight, slender leaves of H. exiliflora up to 2.3 mm wide. H. exiliflora seems most closely allied to a second Drakensberg species, H. brevistyla, which has pale pink flowers with a tube 7–9 mm long, tepals ± 7 × 3.5 mm, short white anthers 2.5–3.5 mm long and short style branches, ± 6 mm long, that reach to ± the lower third of the anthers at most. The flowers of H. exiliflora have yellow anthers and the style branches 3–3.5 mm long, reaching to between the middle of the anthers to just beyond their tips in the closed flower. The tepals dry dark purple whereas those of H. brevistyla dry pink. Although collections of H. exiliflora were at first associated with the Drakensberg species, H. glareosa in both herbaria and the literature, there seems no particular reason to consider them closely related. The straight stem and apparently consistently few-flowered spikes of H. exiliflora are unlike the rather wiry, flexuose spikes of H. glareosa, which has larger flowers with a tube 5–6 mm long and tepals 10–12 mm long.