Description:

• Deciduous perennials
• Rootstock a depressed-globose corm rooting from below, basal in origin, tunics of coarse fibres accumulating in a dense mass
• Stem aerial, branched, terete, sheathed below by a thick, coarsely fibrous neck
• Leaves several, lower 2 or 3 cataphylls; foliage leaves unifacial, with a definite midrib, mostly basal, linear, oval in transverse section, midrib and a second pair of veins on either side heavily thickened, surface thus with 2 narrow longitudinal grooves on each surface, margins unthickened, edged by narrow grooves, dry or becoming dry at flowering time, cauline leaves few and reduced
• Inflorescence a spike, flowers secund; bracts coriaceous, dry at anthesis, inner ± as long as outer and notched apically
• Flowers actinomorphic, trumpet-shaped, pink, unscented, with nectar from septal nectaries; perianth tube narrowly funnel-shaped
• Tepals subequal, suberect, enclosing filaments
• Stamens symmetrically disposed, rotated counterclockwise; filaments arising in throat; anthers opposite inner tepals, facing inward, exserted from flower; pollen monosulcate, operculate, exine perforate
• Style eccentric, branches short, notched apically
• Capsules globose, cartilaginous, lightly verrucose above
• Seeds globose, flattened at chalazal end, hard and shiny, 1 or 2 per locule, smooth, surface laevigate, raphal vascular trace excluded
• x = 10

Classification Notes:

• Perhaps most closely allied to Crocosmia, Devia is distinctive in its longitudinally grooved, narrow leaves, pink perianth and rotated stamens
• It differs in all these features, as well as in its base number of x = 10, from Crocosmia but has internal leaf anatomy and capsule and seed characters that are consistent with this genus and its allies, Chasmanthe and Tritonia

Nomenclature:

• Devia Goldblatt & J.C.Manning
  • Goldblatt & Manning: 362 (1990)
  • Goldblatt: 149 (1999)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 1, Roggeveld Escarpment in the western Karoo (Northern/Western Cape), on clay soils in mountain renosterveld; unusual in flowering in the summer in this area of low, predominantly winter rainfall

Additional Notes:

• The inconspicuous flowers are visited and presumably pollinated by various long-tongued insects including flies in the family Bombyliidae and bees in the family Anthophoridae