Hypoxis rigidula flowers

The flowers of Hypoxis rigidula, commonly stiff-leaved stargrass, each has six bright yellow tepals that spread their pointed tips into star shape, a feature of this well-known genus of many star-like flowers. Well-known, as there are Hypoxis species in Asia, Australia, the Americas and Africa, especially South Africa, a centre of Hypoxis diversity where 40 of the 90 species in the world occur.

A geophytic perennial, Hypoxis grows from a corm. The plants have yellow (sometimes white) flowers and clasping, mostly linear leaves.

H. rigidula grows to 90 cm. In the photo the leaves are silvery from this plant’s overall hairy covering. Some forms are less hairy. The leaves bend variably among the grasses of their usual habitat. The erect flower stalk bears many flowers in hairy calyces well below the height of the leaf tips. Flowers become about 3 cm in diameter.

These plants typically grow in loam soils where they can cope with little moisture. Winter deciduous, when the cold and dry season removes the above-ground parts, the corm sustains the plant’s life for action when temperatures rise and moisture returns (Manning, 2009; Wikipedia).