Aloes and Lilies of Ethiopia and Eritrea

Habitat and
distribution
ANTHERICUM CHLOROPHYTUM 135
curled after anthesis. Capsules 5–8 mm long, subglobose, smooth or
slightly ridged, on reflexed pedicels so that they end up lying on the
ground. Seeds c. 2 mm in diameter.
The species grows in clumps in upland grassland,
seasonally waterlogged, often heavily grazed and eroded,
on black shallow soils; mainly between 2000 and 3000
m. It is recorded from the Tigray, Gonder, We lo, Shewa,
and Gamo Gofa floristic regions in Ethiopia and from
Eritrea. It is otherwise known from Ugan da and Kenya.
The flowering period in Ethiopia is from July to August.
The fact that the plants release the seeds at ground level
might indicate ant dispersal, a possibility which should
be further analysed.
2. CHLOROPHYTUM Ker-Gawl.
The plants are very variable in size and robustness,
reaching from 5 cm to more than 1 m. The rhizome is
reduced or prominent, sometimes moniliform (that is
consisting of a series of attached corms in a chain); roots
either swollen without tubers or more or less wiry with
distinct tubers. The basal leaves are organised in rosettes
or in two ranks (distichous), linear to broadly lanceolate,
sometimes narrowed towards the base to a pseudopetiole
(denoted ‘petiolate’). The peduncles are leafless or they
carry lea ves. The inflorescence is spicate, racemose or
paniculate and complicated in the sense that each node
carries more than one bract and most often also more
than one flower. In contrast to Anthericum species with
complex nodes (as in e.g. A. neghellense), the nodes
always display one more bract than number of flowers
(in Anthericum the number of bracts equals the number
of flowers). This phenomenon indicates that the present
species of Chlorophytum might have evolved from
ancestral species with richly branched inflorescences
that have undergone reductions and contractions of
lateral branches. The pedicels, with very few exceptions,
have a distinct joint (articulation), which may represent
the remnants of former bracts, again reduced through
evolution. The tepals are white, with or without greenish
or reddish stripes on the outside. The capsules are more
or less triangular (trigonous) to deeply three­lobed
(triquetrous) in cross section. The seeds are thin, flat or