Ixia viridiflora

Ixia viridiflora, the green ixia, turquoise ixia, green-flowered corn lily or in Afrikaans the groenkalossie (green skull-cap), is a cormous perennial growing a slender wiry stem to heights from 50 cm to 1 m. The corm is small, about 1 cm in diameter. The plants are winter growing and summer deciduous. The narrow leaves are grass-like, up to 55 cm long.

The inflorescence is an unbranched, stem-tip spike, each flower subtended by two unequal bracts. From twelve to twenty flowers are usually produced in an inflorescence. Each flower has six turquoise green tepals spreading in a star-shape from a slender tube, the flower centre purple-black.

Flowering happens over slightly longer than the first half of spring. Several flowers are usually open concurrently and last for several days. Monkey beetles perform the pollination. The fruit capsule has three locules.

The species distribution is in small  and diminishing parts of the Western Cape, these days near Porterville, south of Malmesbury and between Tulbagh and Wolseley. The photo was taken near Tulbagh.

The habitat is lower fynbos and renosterveld slopes in granitic soil and shale. The species is considered to be endangered in its habitat early in the twenty first century due to farming, fire, invasive exotic vegetation and other human development.

The turquoise ixia is popular in horticulture, also in the Netherlands but often hard to find (Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist; Wikipedia; http://pza.sanbi.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).