Albuca cooperi

Albuca cooperi, commonly known in Afrikaans as the geldbeursie (little money purse) or blougif (blue poison), is a deciduous geophyte growing annual leaves in winter from the perennial bulb. It reaches heights ranging from 35 cm to 60 cm. After flowering and fruiting in spring the plant has a dormant phase in the dry, hot summer.

The tops of the outer bulb scales decay into split fibres. Two or three, sometimes four narrow, channelled leaves are grown; their margins rolled in and clasping the stem at the base where they are warty. Leaves become about 30 cm long, 1,5 cm wide (at the base).

The species distribution is wide, from Namaqualand across most of the Western Cape to the western parts of the Eastern Cape. The habitat is stony slopes and flats in sandy or calciferous soils and coastal dunes. The plant is not threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century.

These flowers were seen near Oudtshoorn in the middle of August (Manning, 2009; www.pacificbulbsociety.org; www.redlist.sanbi.org).