Aloes and Lilies of Ethiopia and Eritrea

186 HYACINTHACEAE
Description
Habitat and
distribution
Key to the species
Plants up to 25 cm. Bulb up to 3 cm in diameter, leaves not present
at anthesis. More than 200 flowers in the branched inflorescence.
Bracts c. 1 mm, spurs up to 2 mm long. Pedicels c. 10 mm long.
Tepals c. 3 mm long. Capsule ellipsoid, about 4 mm long. Seeds
black, flattened, up to 2mm long.
The species is found on steep shaded rocky areas in
degraded bushland/low woodland between 1400 and
1900 m, at a few sites in the Shewa and Harerge floristic
regions. It is has an extreme ly disjunct distribution in
Africa: Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique,
Namibia, and South Africa. The flowering period in
Ethiopia has not been traced.
2. DIPCADI Medicus
This genus includes relatively slender plants with
small bulbs. The leaves are filiform to lanceolate. The
inflorescence is a raceme with recurved pedicels when
flowering, turning upwards in the fruiting stage. The
flowers are yellowish green to green brown. The tepals
are fused from ¼ to ½ of their length forming a tube.
The outer tepals are spreading from near the middle and
most often they carry shorter and longer tails (‘caudate
appendages’). The filaments are flattened, inserted at the
mouth of the tube. The ovary and capsule are sessile or
on a short stalk (‘stipitate’). The seeds are numerous,
flattened and black.
The genus includes about 30 species distributed in
Africa, in the Mediterranean region east to Central Asia,
India and Sri Lanka.
1. Leaves filiform to lanceolate, glabrous; outer tepals with longer or shorter tails
1. D. viride
- Leaves filiform, with hairs; outer tepals without a tail 2. D. marlothii