Babiana patula

Babiana patula, sometimes called the short bobbejaantjie, is a cormous perennial reaching heights from 2 cm to 8 cm. The hairy stem may be bent sideways. It grows taller in shade.

The pleated, hairy leaves are longer than the stem, lance-shaped, and about 10 cm long. The leaves spread in a wide fan. The specific name, patula, is derived from the Latin word patulus meaning spreading or open, referring to this fan. 

The strongly fragrant flowers on short, inclined pedicels grow in a two-ranked raceme. There are green bracts below each flower. The inner bracts are divided to the base, and the bract tips may be dry. A flower may have two yellow or white lower tepals, the rest blue or blue-purple, otherwise all six yellow. A three-branched, whitish style is visible in one of the flowers in the photo. Bloomtime is late winter and early spring.

The species distribution is in the Western Cape, from Tulbagh to Montagu in the Little Karoo and from Caledon and Bredasdorp to Albertinia nearer the coast. The photo was taken near Hermanus.

The plants grow in moist fynbos and renosterveld on clayey and stony flats and lower slopes. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (Scott-Curtis, et al, 2020; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).