Aloes and Lilies of Ethiopia and Eritrea

262 HYPOXIDACEAE
Reproduction
1. HYPOXIS L.
The rhizomes/corms, sometimes branched, have an
inner core of vascular bundles intermingled with fibrous
tissue, and an outer spongy storage area, crossed by
numerous mucilage canals with yellowish or whitish
sap, often darkening on exposure. The roots are stout
and contractile, arranged in an equatorial zone on the
rhizomes/corms, drying up at the end of each season,
leaving distinct scars, a row of new roots being produced
in a ring above the scars in the next season. The leaves
are linear to lanceolate, acute; midrib and leaf margin
always pubescent, sometimes also the lamina, often with
different kind of whitish or yellowish hairs. The scapes
are pubescent. The flowers are situated in racemose,
corymbose, or spicate inflorescences, rarely solitary.
They are subtended by small bracts. The pedicels are
long or short. The ovaries have a short style and three
distinct stigmatic zones lining the upper part of the style.
The capsules open by a lid (pyxidal dehiscence) or by
splits (loculicidal dehiscence). The seeds are subglobose,
black, shiny and more or less papillate or brownish dull
(due to folding of the waxy cuticula).
Hypoxis is a large pan­ to sub­tropical genus. The
few species that are diploid and sexual are easy to
separate. Most species are, however, apomictic with
high chromosome numbers, indicating hybridisation
accompanied by chromosome doubling, and are difficult
to separate. It is therefore problematic to assess the
number of species. In the Flora of Ethiopia and Eritrea
two ‘good’ species (diploid and sexual) were recognised:
H. angustifolia Lam. and H. schimperi Baker. All the
forms belonging in the polyploid apomictic complex
were previously lumped into the Hypoxis villosa complex
in the Flora. Since the publication of the Flora the genus
Hypoxis has, however, been analysed in Southern Africa,
and the name H. villosa L. will have to be restricted to
a Cape species. In our treatment here we will therefore
treat formerly de scribed apomictic taxa at the species
level (‘microspecies’), but one must be aware that forms
might be found that may not easily fit the species as they
are delineated here.
The pollination syndrome appears to be the same for both
Hypoxis and Curculigo (see above). The Hypoxis species