''Eucomis montana'' is a plant species in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Scilloideae, found in South Africa ( KwaZulu-Natal and the

Northern Provinces The Northern Provinces of South Africa is a biogeographical area used in the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD). It is part of the WGSRPD region 27 Southern Africa. The area has the code "TVL". It includes the So ...

) and Eswatini (Swaziland). When in flower in summer, the plant reaches a height of up to , with a dense spike ( raceme) of greenish flowers, topped by a "head" of green bracts.

Description

''Eucomis montana'' is a

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wid ...

growing from a large ovoid bulb with a diameter of up to . Like other ''Eucomis'' species, it has a basal rosette of strap-shaped leaves. These are about long and wide, with smooth margins and purple spots or speckles underneath. The

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...

, produced in late summer, is a dense raceme. The plant reaches an overall height of around . The individual flowers have greenish

tepal A tepal is one of the outer parts of a flower (collectively the perianth). The term is used when these parts cannot easily be classified as either sepals or petals. This may be because the parts of the perianth are undifferentiated (i.e. of very ...

s and stamens with purple filaments, and are borne on short stalks (

pedicels In botany, a pedicel is a stem that attaches a single flower to the inflorescence. Such inflorescences are described as ''pedicellate''. Description Pedicel refers to a structure connecting a single flower to its inflorescence. In the absenc ...

) long. The inflorescence is topped by a head (coma) of green bracts, up to long. The homoisoflavanone 5,6-dimethoxy-7-hydroxy-3-(4′-hydroxybenzyl)-4-chromanone can be found in the bulbs of ''E. montana''.

Taxonomy

''Eucomis montana'' was first described by Robert Harold Compton in 1967, after he retired to Eswatini (then Swaziland) where it was first found. The Latin specific epithet ''montana'' refers to mountains or coming from mountains. It is one of a group of larger,

tetraploid Polyploidy is a condition in which the cells of an organism have more than one pair of ( homologous) chromosomes. Most species whose cells have nuclei (eukaryotes) are diploid, meaning they have two sets of chromosomes, where each set contains ...

species with 2''n'' = 4''x'' = 60 chromosomes.

Distribution and habitat

''Eucomis montana'' was initially discovered in Eswatini, where it grew in colonies on damp grassland slopes at elevations of . It has since also been found in South Africa, in KwaZulu-Natal and the

. It grows at elevations of up to .

Cultivation

, it was said to be very rare in cultivation, but should prove to be "at least frost-hardy".

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q15512890 Scilloideae Plants described in 1967 Flora of KwaZulu-Natal Flora of Swaziland Flora of the Northern Provinces Taxa named by Robert Harold Compton