Aloes and Lilies of Ethiopia and Eritrea

Description
Habitat and
distribution
Chlorophytum
bifolium
Description
CHLOROPHYTUM 145
other Chlorophytum species in Ethiopia by its very thick
tuberous roots and its delicate, irregular flowers.
Plants 30–70 cm high. Rhizome short, moniliform; roots thick and
spongy throughout, or narrow near the base enlarging into long,
conspicuous tubers. Leaves rosulate, erect or sometimes falcate with
clasping bases, glabrous, often bluish to greyish green, narrowly
lanceolate to linear, 20–40 × 0.5–3 cm, margin undulate. Peduncle,
erect, leafless, 15–40 cm. Inflorescence a simple, glabrous raceme
with one flower at each node, supported by short floral bracts.
Pedicels c. 10 mm at anthesis, elongating with age, articulated in
upper half. Flowers conspicuous, zygomorphic; tepals, white with
pale green mid rib, 15–17 mm long, narrow, 3­veined, constricted
and thus forming an urceolate structure around the ovary, outer parts
reflexed at anthesis. Stamens exserted; filaments declinate up to 15
mm, anthers 2–3 mm long. Style declinate, exserted. Capsule with
remnants of the perianth at the base, triquetrous, variable in size, but
often large, 10–15 mm long and most often distinctly longer than
wide. Seeds several, disc­shaped, 3–5 mm across.
The species is found in more or less degraded Acacia-
Combretum-Commiphora woodland to bushland, also on
treeless grassland, on black cotton soil or red late ritic soils,
but also in sand, limestone or gypseous rocks between
800 and 1650 m. It occurs in the Shewa, Gamo Gofa,
Sida mo, Bale and Harerge floristic regions in Ethiopia,
and is further widespread in Somalia and Kenya. The
irregular (zygomorphic) flower morphology differs from
most other Chlorophytum species and might indicate a
different pollination syndrome. More observations are
nee ded. The main flowering period is from March to
June, flowers are also seen in October in the Gamo-Gofa
floristic region.
7. Chlorophytum bifolium Dammer
The species epithet ‘bifolium’ means with two leaves,
and as with ‘tetraphyllum’, this character does not always
hold. European botanists, like Dammer in 1905, described
species on material from Southern Ethiopia, without
overall knowledge of the variation in the nature. In fact,
this species car ries 2–5 basal leaves. The characteristic
features of this species is the pubescent inflorescence and
the one-flowered nodes.
Small plants up to 15 cm high, from a very short rhizome;
roots reduced to a fascicle of elongated tubers, 1.5–2 cm long.