Siphonochilus aethiopicus (Schweinf.) B.L.Burtt

Global description

Siphonochilus aethiopicus emits a large, irregular flower at ground level.It is purple-colored, with yellow patch. The leaves then appear from a tuberous, fusiform rhizome. The sheaths are nested forming an erect axis. They end with a papery, and rounded ligule. The limb is lanceolate with many oblique veins.
Behavior

Seedling

The seedling is very rarely observed because this plant is vivacious and grows each year from a horizontal tuberous rhizome.

General habit

Siphonochilus aethiopicus is erect. The axes, solitary or in small groups, are derived from an underground rhizome and are constituted by the fitting into each other of the leaf sheaths. The plant is 20 to 40 cm tall.

Underground system

The roots are fasciculate, filiform. They develop from the tuberous and horizontal underground rhizomes shaped like a spindle.

Stem

The aerial stem corresponds to the interlocking of the leaf sheaths.

Leaf

The leaves are simple and alternate. They appear at the end of flowering. They are nested inside one another. The leaves of the base are reduced to vertical sheaths with a rounded top. The upper leaves are carried by a sheath that is the more longer since the leaf is close to the top of the plant. The sheath is cylindrical, glabrous and has fine longitudinal veins. It ends, with a papery ligule, 10-20 mm high, with a rounded apex. The blade is lanceolate to elliptical, 5 to 35 cm long and 3 to 9 cm wide. The top and the base are wide to sharp. The margin is entire. The lamina is marked by numerous oblique lateral veins. Both sides are totaly glabrous.

Flower

The flower is solitary and develops at ground level before the leaves. The calyx has 3 sepals welded into a narrow tube in the lower half and cut into 3 linear lobes with a rounded tip, in the upper half. The whole calix is 5 cm long. The corolla is composed of petals associated with petaloid lateral staminodes. It is narrow tube at the base then widens at the top and ends in some large irregular lobes. It is 5 to 10 cm long and 5 cm wide. It is purple, with longitudinal yellow markings in the tube. In the corolla tube are two sessile stamens. The ovary, inferior, is composed of 3 cells containing numerous ovules. It is surmounted by a long filiform style ending in a flattened stigma.

Fruit

The fruit looks like a berry 2.5 cm long and 1.5 cm wide. It is pink in color.

https://www.gbif.org/fr/species/2757671