Description:

• Deciduous perennials
• Rootstock a bell-shaped corm with a flat base, rooting from edge of flat base, axillary in origin, tunics of densely compacted fibres or woody
• Stem aerial or subterranean, compressed and angled to winged, usually branched, sometimes repeatedly
• Leaves several, lower 2 or 3 cataphylls; foliage leaves unifacial, sometimes with a definite midrib, few, sometimes solitary, lowermost longest and arising on stem near ground level, upper leaves cauline and progressively smaller, blade either plane, or shallowly plicate-corrugate, or terete
• Inflorescence either a simple to branched spike, or panicle-like, then usually ultimate branches with sessile flowers, or flowers clustered at ground level in a basal tuft; bracts green and firm to soft-textured, outer sometimes ridged, keeled, crisped or toothed, inner shorter than outer and notched or forked apically
• Flowers zygomorphic or actinomorphic, campanulate to hypocrateriform, blue, purple, red, pink or white, lower or all tepals usually with contrasting darker or lighter markings, sometimes sweetly scented, with nectar from septal nectaries; perianth tube cylindric or campanulate, short to extremely long
• Tepals subequal or unequal and bilabiate
• Stamens symmetrically disposed around style or unilateral and arcuate; filaments arising shortly below mouth of tube; anthers exserted; pollen monosulcate, operculate, exine perforate
• Style filiform, exserted, branches usually forked for up to half their length, occasionally entire or barely forked
• Capsules membranous to cartilaginous, ± globose
• Seeds ± globose, flattened at chalazal end, smooth, rugulose or reticulate, matte, surface usually colliculate, sometimes areolate
• x = 10 (9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3)

Nomenclature:

• Lapeirousia Pourr.
  • Pourret: 79 (1788)
  • Goldblatt: 1 (1972)
  • Glodblatt: 430 (1990)
  • Goldblatt & Manning: 326 (1992)
• Ovieda Spreng.
  • Sprengel: 258 (1817)
• Peyrousia Poir.
  • Poiret: 363 (1826)
• Meristostigma A.Dietr.
  • Dietrich: 593 (1833)
• Sophronia Licht. ex Roem. & Schult.
  • Roemer & Schultes: 482 (1817)
• Chasmatocallis R.C.Foster
  • Foster: 40 (1939)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 40, widespread across sub-Saharan Africa from Nigeria and Ethiopia to Western Cape, South Africa
• Southern Africa: Species 35, most diverse in Namaqualand and western Karoo (Northern Cape) in semi-arid habitats

Additional Notes:

• The flowers of Lapeirousia are highly variable, reflecting adaptations to a range of pollinators
• These include bees, bombyliid flies, noctuid moths and butterflies for short-tubed species, long-proboscid flies of the genera Philoliche (Tabanidae), Prosoeca and Moegistorhynchus (Nemestrinidae) for species with long-tubed red, purple or pink to cream flowers, and sphinx and other moths for species with pale-coloured, long-tubed and fragrant flowers (Goldblatt & Manning: 430 (1995))