Albuca viscosa leaves

Albuca viscosa is a perennial bearing a few to many spiralling leaves. The leaves are covered in glandular hairs that secrete a viscous substance making them sticky. The leaf-shape is narrowly linear, tapering to fine points, channelled on its inner, upper surface and longitudinally lined on the outer.

This plant was initially thought to be A. spiralis, another Albuca with spiralling leaves also found in the Little Karoo. But A. spiralis leaves have smooth surfaces, not sticky for allowing sand to accumulate upon them. Grains of sand are visible upon these leaves.

Spiralling may begin at ground level as seen in the photo, or only halfway up the leaves. This is not a distinctive feature between the two species bearing spiralling leaves, maybe affected by the amount of shade in the growing conditions.

Most Albuca plants have straight leaves, but when there are no flowers, distinguishing these spirals from similar plants of certain other genera may be tricky (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2010; JSTOR; iSpot).