Strumaria truncata

Strumaria truncata, commonly the Namaqualand snowflake, is a bulbous perennial reaching from 20 cm to 40 cm in its annually deciduous parts. The globose bulb of about 2,5 cm in diameter, the underground perennial part, has a long neck and is covered in several layers of pale brown outer tunic.

Two to four twisted, strap-shaped leaves emerge in an erect, basal fan after the year’s flowering. The leaf bases are enveloped by a purplish to maroon cataphyll sheath, a feature not seen in other Strumaria species.

The species distribution is in the west of the Northern Cape and the Western Cape, mainly in Namaqualand, the Bokkeveld Plateau and inland to the Western Karoo.

The habitat is stony, sandy and loamy flats. In picture the plants are settled on a slope among quartzite pebbles. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (Manning and Goldblatt, 1997; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist; JSTOR; https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org; http://pza.sanbi.org; http://www.llifle.com; http://redlist.sanbi.org).