Aloes and Lilies of Ethiopia and Eritrea

SCHIZOBASIS 185
4. Filaments usually purple; ovaries with 2 (rarely one) ovules per locus;
seeds subglobose 4. Ledebouria
- Filaments whitish or greenish; ovaries with several ovules per locus; seeds
flattened 5
5. Bracts with a spur; tepals usually fused at the base, seeds winged 5. Drimia
- Bracts without a spur; tepals always free, seeds not winged 6
6. Tepals yellowish to greenish, inner tepals connivent, outer ± spreading,
base of the filaments clasping the ovary 6. Albuca
- Tepals white, with or without a green midrib, all spreading, filaments
not clasping the ovary 7. Ornithogalum
Schizobasis intricata
1. SCHIZOBASIS Baker
The leaves, all disappearing early in the growing season,
are filiform with expanded leaf bases, which through
the seasons build the bulb. The plants are otherwise
made up of a fairly short peduncle and an extremely
branched green inflorescence, which plays the major role
in photosynthesis. The bracts are lanceolate and carry a
spur (pocket­like extension) at the base. The tepals are
free, broadly lanceolate, whitish, meeting at the apices
and loosening from the base when withered, forming a
cap on the developing capsule. The capsules are ellipsoid
with black, flattened seeds.
The genus includes 5 species distributed from
South to Eastern Africa. The genus has a close relative
in Bowiaea, sharing the traits of reduced leaves and
extremely branched inflorescences that have taken over
photosynthesis. The latter is much larger, up to 3 m, and
climbing. This genus has its northern limit in Northern
Uganda, and might also occur in SW Ethiopia even if it
is so far not recorded.
Schizobasis intricata (Baker) Baker
The species epithet refers to the ’intricate’ extremely
branched inflorescence. The spe cies was described in the
genus Anthe ricum by Baker in 1872; two years later he
transferred it to a new genus, Schizobasis. The type is
from South Africa.