Gethyllis villosa (Thunb.) Thunb.

국표에 없다.

Gethyllis villosa is one of the most intriguing members of the Amaryllidaceae family in southern Africa, due to its peculiar hairy, spiral foliage, fleeting summer blooms, and fragrant autumn fruits.

Description

A tiny bulbous plant of 30 to 150 mm in height, Gethyllis villosa has loosely spiralled strap-like leaves covered with white hairs with the appearance of stars. The flowers are white or pink and have a distinctively bent style, a feature of this species. After the leaves wither at the end of spring, the end of the winter growing season, G. villosa blooms (October to March in the wild). Hysteranthy, a phenomenon where plants flower without leaves being present, while the plant is inactive, is frequent in geophytes, also known as bulbous plants. The flower appears in the same location after the leaves have withered and vanished.

The little bulb is oval, with a diameter of 18 to 24 mm. More than 25 mm is formed above the crown by the tunic. The leaves are linear, 40–50–75–120 mm long, 1.5–4–5 mm wide, flat, with varied helices, twisting loosely toward the apex. The leaves are bristly, white, and heavily covered in fine, upward-facing, or downward-curving, T-shaped hairs. Each bulb produces 5–10 leaves after the flowers, i.e. at the time of flowering, the leaves are dry.

Gethyllis villosa is one of the most intriguing members of the Amaryllidaceae family in southern Africa, due to its peculiar hairy, spiral foliage, fleeting summer blooms, and fragrant autumn fruits.

Flowers are star-shaped, white or pink, 40-90 mm in diameter, faintly fragrant, and most likely self-sterile. One flower is produced per bulb each season. The petioles have a diameter of 2.5–3.5 mm and a length of 35–80 mm. The flower has six distinct tepals, each 20-40 mm long, six stamens and six anthers, the anthers about as long as the filaments, and a style that is longer than the stamens, roughly 15 mm long. The style is straight, curved sideways and has a broad 3-lobed stigma. The perianth tube is 50–100 mm long and is covered in long, soft hairs. The segments are 4 mm wide, lanceolate, and reflexing. The stamens are one third of the length of the segments.

The fruit is a club-shaped berry that is aromatic when ripe, white to off-white to yellow, 50 mm long and 8 mm in diameter containing red seeds. The ovary expands after pollination to form the fruiting body. The berries develop gradually over a period of about 2 months and protrude above the ground when they are ripe, in autumn, the beginning of the growing season. This allows them to discharge their seeds during the wet season. Each fruit contains between 34 and 115 seeds. The berries and seeds resemble those of Gethyllis campanulata in size and shape.

Gethyllis villosa | PlantZAfrica (sanbi.org)

 

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