Drimia acarophylla (Hyacinthaceae), a new species from Eastern Cape, South Africa

Abstract

Drimia acarophylla , a new, inconspicuous, dwarf species from the Albany Centre of Endemism in Eastern Cape, South Africa, is restricted to the Great Fish River floodplain where it is found in small colonies on bare patches of blue-grey pencil shale, where it is further camouflaged by the leaves resembling engorged female blue ticks. It shows affinity to D . depressa (Bak.) Jessop, which is known from the Eastern Cape to KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho, Swaziland and Northern Province, in their shared capitate inflorescence and spreading tepals but is distinguished by its terete, succulent, clavate leaves with a cuticle of densely packed, multifaceted, erect wax platelets. Upon fading the inner tepals close first and their papillate apices fuse with the stigmatic papillae, the stamens wilt and the anthers connive with the style just below the stigma.