Aloes and Lilies of Ethiopia and Eritrea

Androcymbium
striatum
Description
3. ANDROCYMBIUM Willd.
LITTONIA ANDROCYMBIUM 217
The genus includes stemless herbs or with short scapes.
The corms are covered with hard dark tunics. The leaves
are distichous, 2–many, linear to ovate­acuminate,
canaliculate with a broad sheathing base. The flowers
are solitary or many in a terminal capitulum surrounded
by often large, petaloid, colourful bracts, the whole
resembling one flower. The perianth segments are
free, ovate acuminate, margins involute, with a pair of
nectaries. The ovary is 3­locular, ovoid, deeply 3­sulcate,
each locule attenuated into a style ending in a minute
stigma.
The genus is one of the two (with Merendera)
genera in the family that lack proper stems. Merendera
schimperiana, the only member of the genus Merendera,
has purple flowers.
The genus contains 30 species, mostly in South Africa,
and one in North Africa and the Mediterranean region. Of
these, only the following species is known to occur in
Ethiopia.
Some Androcymbium species are cultivated in rock
gardens and in green houses.
Androcymbium striatum Hochst. ex A. Rich.
The specific epithet ‘striatum’ refers to the fine linear
markings or channels (striae) that are seen on the
involucral bracts. The species name was originally coined
by Hoch stetter and formally described by A. Richard in
1851, based on the type material collected from Semien
mountains by Schim per.
Geophyte, 15–30 cm high. Corm ovoid, 1–2.5 × 0.6–2 cm; tunics
firm, dark brown. Scape erect, bearing 2–3 ascending, glabrous
leaves; blade linear or lanceolate 4–20 cm × 1.5–12 mm. Flowers
3­5 in a cluster; pedicels erect, 4­6 mm long, elongating to 10(–16)
mm long in fruit; bracts ovate­cuspidate or oblong, 1.5–6.5 × 0.4–1.6
cm whitish with green veins. Perianth whitish, 7–9 mm long; blade
of the segments 5–6 mm long and the claw c. 2 mm long. Stamens
equal to the perianth or shortly exserted. Capsule ovoid, 9­11 mm
long with the persistent style 3–5.5 mm long. Seeds reddish­brown,
. 1.3–1.5 × 1.3­1.5 mm.