Romulea tortuosa
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| Romulea tortuosa | |
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Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Monocots |
| Order: | Asparagales |
| Family: | Iridaceae |
| Genus: | Romulea |
| Species: | R. tortuosa |
| Binomial name | |
| Romulea tortuosa | |
| Synonyms | |
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Romulea tortuosa is a herbaceous perennial geophyte in the family Iridaceae native to South Africa. It has a small corm in the soil, a few prostrate coiling leaves, and fragrant, trimerous yellow flowers, sometimes with six brown blotches on the inside near the bottom of the flower.[1][2]
Romulea tortuosa is a very low perennial plant of 3–6 cm (1.2–2.4 in) high, that survives the dry southern summer through storage of its resources in an oval corm, which is clad in a brown, rigid tunic. Its three to four spreading, firm, awl-shaped basal leaves are coiled like corkscrews, 3¾–5 cm (1½–2 in) long, about 1 mm (0.04 in) in diameter, with three veins.[2][3] Two or three flowers appear almost without a stem from the base of the leaves. Each flower is subtended by two green lanceolate non-coiling bracts of 1¼ cm (½ in) long. The bright yellow perianth, that consists of six tepals, which are merged near their base, forms a short tube at its base, and a cup of 1¼ cm (½ in) high, with egg-shaped lobes. The anthers are in the upper half of the cup and narrowly arrow-shaped.[4] The typical subspecies (R. tortuosa subsp. tortuosa) has brown blotches near the bottom of the flower cup, which are absent in R. tortuosa subsp. aurea.[3] The opened flower smells like the Narcissus blossom.[2][5]