Hypoxis uniflorata Markötter (1930: 15)

Niemann, Hendrik J., Coetzer, Dewald J. & Glennon, Kelsey L., 2023, Hypoxis limicola and H. uniflorata (Hypoxidaceae) deserve species rank: multiple new lines of evidence, Phytotaxa 619 (1), pp. 63-85 : 77

Hypoxis uniflorata Markötter (1930: 15)

Type:— SOUTH AFRICA. Free State: Koolhoek O.F.S on wet rocks ( QDS: 2729DC), November 1907, Thode 2548 (holotype NH! [image]) .

Rhizome 15 mm in diam. on average, globose with few contractile roots, crowned by leaves and few fine bristles. Leaves few, 3–8, wrapped at base in membranous, brown tunic, linear, 20–65 × 2–5 mm, soft to membranous, smooth; veins 3(–5), all flush with surface, hardly thickened, sparsely hairy on both surfaces, but dense on midrib and veins; hairs bifurcate or stellate, white. Inflorescence 1(–3) per plant, corymbose, covered in long, weak, white hairs; scapes shorter than or as tall as leaves, delicate, 20–40 mm long; bracts 1(2), subulate, ca. 2mm long, lightly hairy below. Flowers 1(2); pedicels weak, lax, 20–40 mm when flowers open; tepals yellow adaxially, 5–8 mm long in open flowers. Stamens 3+3, with filaments subulate, yellow, short inner filaments ca. 1 mm, long outer filaments ca. 2.5 mm; anthers ca. 2.5 mm long, sagittate, apex split. Ovary 1.0– 1.5 mm long; style 1.5 mm long; stigma pyramidal with 3 concave faces, 1 mm in long. Capsule turbinate, 3–4 × 2–3 mm, opening by a circular slit, splitting longitudinally into 3 lobes. Seeds ovoid, 1.05–1.10 mm × 0.95–1.00 mm, black, dull; seed coat epidermal cells are isodiametric, 4–8-gonal with straight, channelled, anticlinal boundaries that are smooth and well defined; convex outer periclinal cell wall columellate and/or capitate/pilate, micropapillate; micropapillae rarely overlap and shorter at top of convex projection, becoming longer across periclinal wall and again becoming shorter towards anticlinal boundaries. Flowering time: October to December (insufficiently known).

Diagnostic characters and relationships:— Hypoxis uniflorata is morphologically most similar to H. floccosa Baker (1894: 357) with which it shares linear leaves and weak scapes with slender pedicels bearing one or two flowers. It can be distinguished from H. floccosa by having leaves with 3(–5) veins that are hardly thickened (not 8–10 veins with one near each margin slightly thickened and raised on upper surface) and bracts that are ca. 2mm long (not 4–10 mm long). Although it was thought to be a synonym of H. parvula var. parvula , it has linear (not lanceolate) leaves, subulate (not filiform) anther filaments, and a pyramidal (not spherical) stigma. It also did not clade with H. parvula var. parvula in the phylogeny produced in the current study, but instead resolved as sister to the clade containing H. hemerocallidea (albeit with moderate to poor support). Although both H. uniflorata and H. hemerocallidea have pyramidal stigmas and subulate anther filaments, these shared character states are the most commonly present among the southern African Hypoxis . It is plausible that this grouping might be an artifact of the limited taxon coverage in the current dataset.

Distribution and habitat:— Hypoxis uniflorata is a South African endemic, originally thought to be restricted to the Free State province where it was only known from the type locality on the farm Koolhoek. It may also be found in the country’s KwaZulu-Natal province based on the specimen Singh 308 (PRE), which was collected from the Ncandu State Forest Reserve, but the species identity of this population needs to be verified. At the type locality, H. uniflorata mostly grows in wet rock crevices at altitudes of 1820–1900 m.a.s.l.

Additional specimen examined:— SOUTH AFRICA. Kwazulu-Natal: Newcastle, Incandu (Ncandu) State Forest Reserve , c. 1 km SW from the Hikers Hut (QDS: 2729DC), 19 November 1997, Singh 308 ( NH) .