Cyrtanthus helictus, Lehm. Delect. Sem. Hort. Hamburg. 1839, 7; Fl.
Cap. vol. vi. p. 226.
This species of Cyrtanthus belongs to the same group as the species figured on Plate 25 (C. sanguineus). The group is characterised by having a single flower or few flowers in each umbel. Our previous illustrations of Cyrtanthus should be compared with the above two and the present plate. C. helictus, which is an exceptionally graceful representative of the genus, has not been extensively collected by botanists, and we know of its occurrence in the Somerset East, Graaff Reinet, Fort Beaufort, and Queenstown Divisions only. It should certainly engage the attention of cultivators of South African plants, as it is well worthy of a place in the bulb garden.
Our illustration was made from specimens collected by Dr. E. P. Phillips near Fort Beaufort; these flowered at the Division of Botany in November 1922.
Description:—Bulb 2·7 cm. in diameter, globose, with papery tunics and thick wrinkled roots from the base. Leaves contemporary with the flowers, about 3 to each bulb, spirally twisted, 12 cm. long, 4·5 mm. broad, linear, obtuse, narrowed to the base, glabrous. Peduncle arising at side of the leaves, 9 cm. long, but sometimes longer, terete, glabrous. Spathe valves 2·5 cm. long, acuminate from an ovate base, membranous. Flowers usually solitary. Pedicel 1·2 cm. long, terete, glabrous, shorter than the spathe-valves. Perianth-tube 3 cm. long, 2 mm. in diameter, and curved at the base, widening to 1·3 cm. in diameter at the throat; lobes 2 cm. long, 9 mm. broad, obovate, obtuse, or the outer segments bluntly apiculate with a pendulous appendage, 5-nerved. Stamens in 2 series: the lower with filaments 1·1 cm. long; the upper with filaments 8 mm. long, all filiform; anthers 3·5 mm. long, linear. Ovary 7 mm. long, ellipsoid, glabrous; style 5·5 cm. long; lobes 5 mm. long, linear (National Herb. Pretoria 2634).
[Plate 99.]—Fig. 1, perianth laid open; Fig. 2, perianth lobes; Fig. 3, upper portion of style.
F.P.S.A., 1923.