Ixia

Ixia is a genus of cormous, deciduous perennials in the Iridaceae family. The globose corms root from below and are covered in fine to moderately coarse fibres. The plants are summer dormant.

Several leaves are grown, as well as two or three cataphylls. The leaves usually have raised midribs, sometimes also raised and even crisped margins, the leaf-shape sword-like, sickle-shaped or linear and often short.

The stems are mostly aerial, rarely subterranean, usually slender, wiry, terete and branching widely. The inflorescence is a spirally arranged spike. The floral bracts are membranous, often translucent and tinged purple, the outer one usually bigger and three pointed at its tip, the inner having a two-pointed tip. These multiple bract tips separate Ixia species from some of the similar genera.

The flowers are usually regular or radially symmetrical, the nearly equal tepals spreading. The perianth tubes are funnel-shaped or thread-like, varying in length. Tepal colours are pink, mauve or yellow, sometimes with a darker centre. Some species are fragrant, while some bear nectar.

The three stamens arise in the throat or at the top of the tube, included in some corollas or well exserted and some partly united. The anthers diverge only in some species. The style is sometimes exserted, the three style branches slender, dividing below the top of the anthers. The three-locular ovary is inferior.

The flowers close at night and in inclement weather.

The fruit is a globose, cartilaginous capsule. The seeds are globose or slightly angled, hard and shiny.

There are about 50 Ixia species, all South African and 46 of them in the winter rainfall fynbos. The common name for plants of the genus is kalotjie or kalossie, Afrikaans words referring to the flower resemblance to the early colonial era scull caps worn by Malay slave in the Cape. There are several Ixia garden cultivars.

The plant in picture is Ixia viridiflora (Leistner, (Ed.), 2000; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Manning, 2007).