Eriospermum zeyheri

Eriospermum zeyheri is a tuberous perennial. This leafless E. zeyheri plant has a sturdy purplish grey stalk, ready to carry the fruits and seeds until dispersal time.

The lowest flowers on the raceme have already been transformed into lumpy green fruits subtended by narrowly pointed calyx lobes. This process has also started on the closed flowers above them, pollination being over and the wait for seed has begun.

The inflorescence resembles that of E. aequilibre, but that plant has a different leaf-shape. Since both these plants grow leaves in winter and flowers in late summer or autumn, identification mistakes are easy in summer.

E. zeyheri plants are found in the Northern Cape and the Western Cape from Barrydale in the Little Karoo eastwards to the Eastern Cape as far as Makhanda (Grahamstown). The plant was photographed on the Minwater farm near Oudtshoorn in April.

The habitat is lower clayey slopes in a variety of veld types. The species is not considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2010; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; www.pacificbulbsociety.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).