Aloes and Lilies of Ethiopia and Eritrea

Bulbine abyssinica
Description
Habitat and
distribution
2. BULBINE Wolf
BULBINE JODRELLIA 121
The genus includes plants with more or less fleshy leaves.
The inflorescence is a many-flowered raceme, where
the lower pedicels are longer than the upper, making it
umbel-like or corymbose. The flowers are bright yellow
with free, subequal, spreading, one­veined tepals. The
filaments are densely covered with long hairs. The
capsules are subglobose, and the seeds are angled and
dark brown.
The genus is African, represented by about 50 species,
with a centre of diversity in the south. Only one species
reaches Ethiopia.
Bulbine abyssinica A. Richard
The species epithet refers to Abyssinia, the former name
of Ethiopia, from where it was described by A. Richard in
1851, based on material from Tigray. The yellow flowers
and the hairy filaments make it different from all other
lilies of Ethiopia.
Perennial herb, often forming clumps. Leaves 7–30 × 0.2–0.5
cm, gradually dilating to a broad sheathing membranaceous base,
sometimes covered by fibres. Scapes (including the raceme) 10–50
cm long, several on each plant, erect or curved. Bracts cuspidate,
6–15 × 2–3 mm long. Raceme 2.5–20 cm long, dense-flowered in
the upper part; pedicel patent to erect, 1.5–2.5 cm long, elongating
to 3 cm in fruit. Tepals bright yellow, sometimes with a purplish to
reddish­brown stripe on the outside, subequal, 6–9 × 2–2.5 mm.
Filaments 3–5 mm long, densely covered with long yellow hairs,
especially in the middle to upper part; anthers ca. 3 mm. Capsule
subglobose, constricted at the base, 3–5 × 3–4 mm. Seeds almost
smooth, ca. 2.5 mm in diameter.
This species is found in degraded Acacia bushland,
Acacia-Combretum bushland, or in grassland, on reddishbrown
loamy soil or on sand between 1200 and 1750 m. It
occurs in the Tigray, Welo, Shewa, Sidamo, and Harerge
floristic regions. Elsewhere it occurs in Somalia, Kenya,
Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and Zaire. The main
flowering period in Ethiopia is from April to May.