Description:

• Perennial, deciduous, glabrous, bulbous herbs
• Bulb subglobose to globose-depressed, up to 150 mm in diameter, usually exposed above ground; with or without grey, withered, membranous outer scales, inner scales thick, white or green if exposed to light
• Leaves 1-few, soon withering and falling, linear, small, canaliculate
• Inflorescence: axis (stem) much branched, succulent, scrambling or pendulous, up to 2-3 m long, annual, glabrous, bright green or glaucous, branches reflexed-spreading; bracts narrowly triangular or lanceolate, spurred
• Flowers green, yellowish green or white, diurnal; pedicels long, arched
• Tepals free or fused only at base; lobes spreading or reflexed, oblong to lanceolate with incurved tips, persistent in fruit
• Stamens 6, arising from base of tepals; filaments free; anthers oblong, introrse
• Ovary subglobose to conical; ovules many; style terete, with a clavate, 3-lobed stigma
• Fruit a globose or ovoid capsule, trigonous; valves emarginate or tapering into style, with or without a little horn above middle of each valve; dehiscing loculicidally
• Seeds few, flattened, shiny black
• x = 10

Classification Notes:

• Regarded by some authorities (Bruyns & Vosa 1987) as a monospecific genus

Nomenclature:

• Bowiea Harv. ex Hook.f.
  • Hooker: t. 5619 (1867)
  • Baker: 367 (1896)
  • Mildbraed: 201 (1934)
  • Sölch et al.: 32 (1970)
  • Dyer: t. 815 (1941)
  • Jessop: 312 (1977)
  • Van Jaarsveld: 343 (1983)
  • Bruyns & Vosa: 287 (1987)
  • Reid et al.: t. 2007 (1990)
  • Stedje: 28 (1996); name conserved, not of Haworth

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 3, Africa, from South Africa to Uganda and Kenya
• Southern Africa: Species 2, widespread but increasingly rare, Namibia, Northern Province, North-West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Northern, Western and Eastern Cape
  • Most frequently found among bushes and trees, especially along river banks, it also occurs in drier areas, usually among boulders, but sometimes in the open

Additional Notes:

• The photosynthetic function is performed by the inflorescence as the leaves are rudimentary and soon withering
• Well known as a medicinal plant, toxic in large quantities
• Cultivated ornamental