Description :

• Evergreen or deciduous perennials
• Rootstock a depressed-globose corm rooting from below, axillary in origin, tunics of matted, coarse to fairly fine fibres often accumulating in a dense mass
• Stem aerial, simple or branched, leafy below or with dry scales, round in section
• Leaves several, unifacial, basal longest, cauline decreasing in size above, sometimes filiform, blades plane, sometimes pseudopetiolate and abruptly expanded above base, with more than one main vein unless very narrow, often partly or entirely dry at flowering
• Inflorescence a spike, flowers spirally arranged; bracts coriaceous or dry and brown at flowering time, inner as long or usually longer than outer, entire
• Flowers zygomorphic and bilabiate or tubular and hypocrateriform, rarely actinomorphic, usually shades of pink to purple or red, sometimes white, yellow, brown or cream, lower tepals usually with darker or lighter markings, sometimes scented, with nectar from septal nectaries; perianth tube short to long, cylindric, funnel-shaped or narrow below and broadly tubular above
• Tepals subequal, or unequal and then bilabiate, sometimes dissimilar, dorsal much larger than lower, sometimes markedly clawed
• Stamens unilateral and arcuate or horizontal, rarely symmetrically disposed and erect; filaments arising in mouth of tube or at base of wider part, curving outward after anther dehiscence; anthers blunt or short- to long-apiculate; pollen monosulcate, operculate, exine perforate
• Style filiform, branches short and recurved, sometimes emarginate or shortly bilobed
• Capsules ovoid to globose, coriaceous, often somewhat to much inflated
• Seeds angled, with a chalazal crest, sometimes winged on angles and coat somewhat spongy, matte, irregularly sculpted, alveolate
• x = 16 (15) (polyploidy)

Classification Notes:

• Tritoniopsis is taxonomically isolated within Ixioideae and is readily distinguished by the short, firm-textured floral bracts, the inner floral bract longer than the outer, and the leaves with more than one main vein, thus lacking a definite midrib

Nomenclature:

• Tritoniopsis L.Bolus
  • Bolus: 123 (1929)~(Page number suspect - No access to the publication)
  • Lewis: 321 (1959)
  • Goldblatt: 577 (1990)
• Gladiolus L. subgenus Schweiggera E.Mey. ex Baker
  • Baker: 178 (1878)
• Tanaosolen N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 262 (1932)
• Anapalina N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 274 (1932)
  • Lewis: 53 (1960)
• Exohebea R.C.Foster
  • Foster: 36 (1939)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 22, mainly Western Cape, extending from the Bokkeveld Escarpment to the Transkei (Eastern Cape), most often in sandstone soils in fynbos

Additional Notes:

• The flowers are adapted for pollination by a variety of animals
• The short-tubed species are mostly pollinated by bees, and the long-tubed species either by moths or long-proboscid flies
• The red-flowered T. lesliei , which has red, hypocrateriform, rotate flowers is probably pollinated by the butterfly Aeropetes
• Other red-flowered species with zygomorphic flowers may also be pollinated by Aeropetes or by sunbirds or both
• The light spongy seeds with winged angles are wind-dispersed