Eucomis

Eucomis is a Hyacinthaceae genus of deciduous, bulbous perennials. The globose to ovoid bulbs are mostly large in membranous tunics, becoming dark with numerous roots growing from the base.

Few to many strap-shaped or obovate leaves are prostrate or ascend from the base. The leaves grow concurrently with the inflorescence. Lower leaf surfaces are in their lower parts often suffused, barred or spotted purple. The blades are smooth and hairless, channelled near the base.

The inflorescence is a dense, many-flowered raceme, crowned with a coma of leafy bracts that are usually sterile. The peduncle is sturdy and cylindrical to club-shaped. The bracts among the flowers are smaller than those of the coma.

The bisexual flowers grow on pedicels of variable length. They have six persistent tepals in two whorls of three, fused at the base but spreading at their tips. The tepals are oblong to slightly lance-shaped. Flower colour is white, cream, greenish or purplish red. In some species or on some plants the flowers are strongly scented.

Six stamens emerge from near the segment bases. Their filaments are fused near the base, forming a shallow cup. The superior ovary is globose to obovoid, comprising three locules and producing nectar at its top.

The fruit is a three-segmented capsule. The seeds are globose to ovoid, dark and hard.

The about eleven species of Eucomis all grow in southern to central Africa, from Agulhas (Eucomis regia) as far as Malawi, usually in all but the arid parts of the region.

The plants occur in grassland, forests, swamps and along rivers from the coast to montane areas at high elevations. They grow solitary or form colonies and sometimes hybridise naturally.

The plant in picture was seen in the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden, flowering at the end of January. It resembles the Sparkling Burgundy variety of E. comosa (Leistner, (Ed.), 2000; Manning, 2007; iNaturalist; www.sarahraven.com).