Hesperantha baurii subsp. baurii

Hesperantha baurii subsp. baurii is a cormous perennial reaching heights from around 35 cm to 50 cm. The other subspecies, subsp. formosa, is a smaller plant, bearing fewer but bigger flowers, more or less similar in appearance. The corm of subsp. baurii has a flat base and is covered in hard layers of a woody tunic. Four or five narrow, linear leaves are grown, two or three at the base, the others up the flower stem, sheathing it.

A spike of bright pink, six-tepalled flowers appears from before midsummer to early autumn. The corolla tube is nearly 1 cm long, the tepals spreading to a diameter of up to 3 cm. Flowers are open during daytime.

The stamens diverge in the salver-shaped corolla into the cream to yellow oblongs of the thin anthers. The style has three white stigma branches, longer and taller than the stamens.

The species is distributed in the east of South Africa, from the Eastern Cape through KwaZulu-Natal and the eastern Free State to Mpumalanga and Limpopo, from the coast to the Drakensberg; also in Lesotho.

The habitat is moist, mountainous grassland. H. baurii subsp. baurii has a stable habitat population early in the 21st century (Manning, 2009; iNaturalist; https://www.worldfloraonline.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).