Bowiea volubilis subsp. volubilis

Bowiea volubilis subsp. volubilis, commonly the climbing onion, sometimes the climbing green lily and in Afrikaans the knolklimop (bulbous climber), is a member of the Hyacinthaceae family. When listing poisonous plants, this species features prominently.

The species fits among the bulbous plants as it grows from a large bulb. The soft stems also allow the plant to fit among herbaceous plants, a typical perennial. Another plant category where it fits well, is among the succulents. The plant annually grows a multitude of fleshy green stems. They perform the bulk of the required photosynthetic production functions, as well as the storing of water, on top of what is stored in the bulb itself.

The plant is here grouped with the climbers, as the overwhelming impression of a well-developed specimen is the mass of scandent stems that use all available supports to reach sunlight. It grows to 4 m in height.

The distribution of the subspecies is in the east of South Africa from the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal to Mpumalanga, Gauteng and Limpopo, also into tropical Africa at least as far as Kenya.

The habitat is mainly summer rainfall thicket, forest margins, often in rocky or mountainous places, but also along river banks and bushy kloofs. It grows at elevations between 300 m and 2300 m.

The other South African subspecies, B. volubilis subsp. gariepensis grows in the arid west of southern Africa: northern Namaqualand including the Richtersveld and southern Namibia. That subspecies has blue-green stems and white flowers.

The habitat populations of both subspecies are considered vulnerable early in the twenty first century, due to excessive plant collection by those involved in the traditional medicine plant trade (Germishuizen and Clarke, 2003; Pooley, 1998; iNaturalist; www.bihrmann.com; http://redlist.sanbi.org).