Watsonia watsonioides

    Watsonia watsonioides
    Author: Ivan Lätti
    Photographer: Judd Kirkel Welwitch

    Watsonia watsonioides, commonly the yellow watsonia or sometimes what-a-watsonia and previously W. flavida, is a cormous perennial that reaches around 1 m in height. The corm is globose and depressed, from 2 cm to 3 cm in diameter. Its tunics are finely netted, extending upwards in a fibrous collar.

    The about two sword-shaped leaves grown from the ground are stiff with prominent, hard midribs and margins, sometimes as tall as the flowers and 3 mm to 6 mm wide. When a third leaf is present, it is a stem-leaf, variably sheathing. 

    The species distribution is near the escarpment in the east of Mpumalanga and in eSwatini.

    The habitat is stony, mountainous grassland, the plants growing in the open. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (Manning, 2009; Onderstall, 1984; iNaturalist; https://www.worldfloraonline.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).

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