Babiana

The Babiana genus consists of 86 species that grow annual, deciduous, above-ground parts (leaves, stems and flowers) from perennial, globose corms with roots below them. Corm tunics are layered, often leathery, sometimes fibrous.

The stem may be underground or above, branched or not, usually hairy and sometimes sheathed at the base like a neck in a collar. Most species are winter growing and spring flowering. Babiana leaves are pleated, often hairy and sword-shaped or wedge-shaped, the lower two or three not leaves but cataphylls.

The flowers grow in two opposite ranks, secund (all on one side) or spiralling spikes. They have long or short tubes with ovaries that are hairy or not. The inner, floral bracts may be split to the base or forked. The corolla shape is either in the form of a funnel-shaped bowl or two-lipped. Blue or mauve flowers are common, while white, red, pink, cream or yellow are less so. The stamens cohere in an arch or are symmetrically arranged. The fruit capsules are globose to oblong, sometimes hairy.

The Babiana name association with baboons relates to the animals proclivity for consuming the corms, the plants consequently often adapted to stony conditions where the corms are deep underground or wedged among rocks. People also used to eat the corms of certain species.

Most babianas (50 species) are found in fynbos in the Western Cape. A lesser concentration is in Namaqualand with few in southern Namibia and the Eastern Cape, one in southern Zimbabwe.

The plant in picture may be Babiana mucronata (Manning, 2009; Leistner, (Ed.), 2000; iNaturalist; www.pacificbulbsociety.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).