Cyanella lutea leaves

Cyanella lutea is a perennial geophyte growing from a corm. The narrow, lance-shaped leaves usually form a spreading rosette on the ground.

The flower-stem reaches 25 cm in height, producing a raceme of yellow or pink flowers. The flower consists of six tepals in two whorls of three. Flowering happens in late spring.

The distribution differs much for the two subspecies:

Subsp. lutea flowering yellow is more narrowly distributed, mainly in the Western Cape.

Subsp. rosea flowering pink occurs more widespread, hardly at all in the Western Cape but ranging from Namibia, Botswana and Lesotho across the Northern Cape, the western Free State and the Eastern Cape.

The photo is from the Little Karoo in April; this plant likely being subsp. lutea.

The species habitat varies, mainly clayey, sandy or limestone flats. Neither of the two subspecies of C. lutea is considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; iSpot; www.pacificbulbsociety.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).