SPECIES DESCRIPTION
ROMULEA RAMIFLORA subsp. RAMIFLORA
Family and Genus:- See- IRIDACEAE
Common Names:- None
Homotypic Synonyms:- None
Meaning:- Romulea (L) For Romulus, founder of Rome.
Ramiflora (L) With flowers on the branches.
General description:- Herbaceous plant, with erect, hairless stems.
Scape:-
1) Usually below ground at anthesis, later up to 30 cm, 1- to 4(-6) flowered.
Leaves:-
1) Usually fairly thick.
2) Basal, 2, 6-30 cm x 0·75-1·5 mm, erect or recurved.
3) Cauline, up to 4(-6), one on lower part of the scape.
4) The others more or less terminal.
Flowers:-
1) Lilac-blue, sometimes with darker veins, sometimes pinkish inside, yellow-green
outside; throat white or yellow.
2) Pedicels. elongating after flowering to up to 10 cm.
3) Bract, 1-2·2 cm, herbaceous, strongly veined.
4) Bracteole, with a narrow hyaline margin.
5) Perianth, 1-1·8 cm., the tube 2·5-7 mm.
6) Segments, oblanceolate or oblanceolate-elliptical, acute.
7) Anthers, reaching about 2/3 of the way up the segments.
8) Style, slightly shorter than the stamens.
9) Stigmas, just below or just above the top of the anthers.
Fruit:-
1) Capsule, 1·2-1·6 cm, cylindrical to oblong.
Key features:-
1) Flowers, violet or lilac-blue with darker veins, often paler and almost white distally
2) Stigmas, at or above the top of the anthers.
Habitat:- Coastal meadows and salt marshes, also in seasonally damp grassland,
open dry shrubby vegetation and open woodland some distance inland up to 1200
m.
Distribution:- Scattered throughout Greece, but rare in the interion. - Mediterranean
region, eastwards to Cyprus. Limited distribution on Crete. Rare
Flowering time:- (Jan-)Feb to early Mar.
Photos by:- Steve Lenton
