Description :

• Small pubescent, rarely glabrous geophytes; indumentum on leaves, pedicels, ovary and backs of outer tepals; hairs tufted with 2 or more unequal branches
• Rhizome small, vertical, oblong, mucilaginous, with fibrous tunics; roots thin or fleshy and contractile
• Leaves 5-10, basal, rosulate, linear to elliptic, enclosed by colourless, membranous, tubular sheaths
• Inflorescence 1- or 2-flowered; scape solitary in leaf axil, simple or binate, short and included in leaf bases or overtopping leaves; bracts linear or vestigial
• Flowers red, pink or white with a closed throat; pedicels short, erect or deflexed in fruit
• Tepals connate into a short perigone tube; segments spreading, longer than tube; inner segments clawed and inflexed basally, covering flower centre before spreading outwards
• Stamens 6, included, arising from perigone tube in 2 series, outer above and slightly larger than inner; filaments very short, attached to anther low down on back; anthers apiculate, introrse
• Ovary obpyramidal, trilocular, with or without a beak; ovules ± 4 in each locule, axile; style short or 0; stigma trilobed
• Capsule thin, papery, circumscissile, septicidal or breaking up irregularly below apex
• Seeds subglobose, black, shiny, mamillate or echinulate, raphe conspicuous
• x = 6 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Rhodohypoxis Nel
  • Nel: 239, 257 (1914a)
  • Nel: 300 (1914b)
  • Baker: 179 (1896) in part, under Hypoxis
  • Hilliard & Burtt: 43 (1978)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 6, endemic, at high altitudes in the eastern regions, particularly in the Drakensberg: Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho and Eastern Cape