Aloes and Lilies of Ethiopia and Eritrea

240 IRIDACEAE
Zygotritonia praecox
Description
Habitat and
distribution
7. ZYGOTRITONIA Mildbr.
This genus is easily recognised within the family in
Ethiopia by its small white flowers and the undivided
style.
The genus includes small seasonal herbs with corms.
The leaves are few, lanceolate to linear, prominently
nerved to somewhat plicate. The stem is flattened, simple
or branched. The inflorescence is a spike with spirally
arranged flowers. The bracts are small, green, drying
brown. The flowers are yellow, orange or white, and
bilaterally symmetric. The tepals are united to form
a cylindric tube; unequal, upper larger held apart and
hooded, lower three forming a lip. The stamens are
arcuate. The style is slender and simple (undivided). The
capsule is three­lobed. The seeds are globose to angled
and smooth on the surface.
The genus is represented by four species, all in tropical
Africa. Of these, only the following species is known to
occur in Ethiopia.
Zygotritonia praecox Stapf
The specific epithet ‘praecox’ refers to the sequence in
the development of the flowers and the leaves, in this case
referring to the development of flowers before the leaves
(praecox). The species was descri bed by Stapf in 1927
from a plant collected from Abinsi, Nigeria by Dalziel.
Plants 15–25 cm high. Corm 12–22 mm in diameter. Leaves
hysteranthous, flowering stem bearing two small leaves, one basal
and sheathing two­third of the stem, reaching to about the base of
the spike, the upper leaf (when present) as long as or shorter than
the lower and inserted in the third; the lower leaf with linear to
lanceolate leaf blade, 3–12 cm long, 1–5 mm wide. Stem simple or
with 1–2 branches. Spike with 8–24 flowers on the main axis, 5–12
on the branches. Flowers whitish, flushed pink on the tube and at the
end of the tepals, especially the upper; perianth tube 2.5–3 mm long;
tepals linear to lanceolate, the upper 5–8 mm long, the other tepals
3–4 mm long. Filaments 3–4 mm long. Capsule 3 mm long and 3–4
mm wide, dark brown slightly warty.
The species grows in dense stands in bush land meadows
with rocky outcrops, between 1600 and 1620 m, near
Assosa in Wellega floristic region. The species is otherwise