Romulea jugicola

Romulea jugicola is a cormous perennial that reaches 30 cm in height when flowering. The corm has a horseshoe shape with an oblique ridge of rounded teeth or fibril clusters.

The few, narrow leaves (or a single, long one) are ridged and covered in short, pale hairs.

The flower grows stemmed. The bracts below the flower are green, the inner one wider with brown speckles or streaks, the margins membranous.

The six orange to apricot tepals form a cup, often with a distinct yellow base and dark, longitudinal lines from below onto the lower lobe parts. The tepal lobes are pointed, spreading to around 3 cm in diameter. The outer three tepals are red brown on the outside. The filaments of the stamens are hairy or partly so.

Flowering happens late in winter and spring.

The species distribution is in the southeast of the Western Cape on the Little Karoo and adjacent coastal mountains to near Uniondale. The photo was taken at Minwater near Oudtshoorn.

The habitat is fynbos, renosterveld and scrub on stony lower slopes, the soils shale or clayey. The species is considered vulnerable in habitat early in the twenty first century, due to expanding farming activities (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist; JSTOR; https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).