Aloes and Lilies of Ethiopia and Eritrea

Fig. 101.
Merendera
schimperiana,
from Entoto,
Shewa floristic
region.
Description
Habitat and
distribution
ANDROCYMBIUM MERENDERA IPHIGENIA 219
Geophytic herb with a small globose to ovoid corm 1.5–3.5 × 1.2–3
cm; tunics rigid, brown­black, produced over its neck; underground
neck 2–7 cm long, furnished with a cylindrical membranous
sheathing leaf. Leaves 2–6, ascending or spreading; leaf­blade linear
4.5–8.5 cm × 1.5–5 mm long. Flowers 1–2, rarely 3 subsessile in the
centre of a rosette of leaves. Perianth purple, with a filiform claw,
1.5–2.5 cm long and leaf­blade linear oblong 1.7–3.5 cm × 1.5–5
mm. Stamens attached to the perianth segments; anthers yellow,
linear, almost basifixed, 4–4.5 mm long; filaments 3.5–4 mm long.
The species grows in open grazed grassland, grazed
wasteland and open hillside in the montane and ericaceous
belt between 2050 and 3880 m in Tigray, Gonder, Gojam,
Welo, Shewa, Arsi, Harerge, Bale and Sidamo floristic
regions. It also occurs in Somalia and southern Arabia.
The main flowering period in Ethiopia is from June to
July; the onset of the rainy season in much of highland
Ethiopia.
5. IPHIGENIA Kunth
The genus includes slender geophytes. The underground
corm is covered with dark thin tunics. The stems are
erect or flexuose (flexible). The leaves are sessile, basally
sheathing and the leaf-blades are linear to filiform. The
flowers are solitary or 3–10, on a lax scorpioid stalk. The
pedicels are erect or recurved. The perianth segments
are free, deciduous and linear. The stamens have short
filaments. The ovary is ovoid and the style very short
with 3­falcate stigmatic branches. The capsule is ovoid
to cylindrical and opens by loculicidal dehiscence.