Wildflower series ~ Eriospermum flagelliforme, a.k.a. Eriospermum abyssinicum

There is one particular part of the hillside that is covered with these tiny little yellow flowers at the moment. I'm not sure why the population is so localised. The name Eriospermum means "wooly seeds" so I am sure that they are dispersed by the wind and so I would expect them to be more spread out than they are although most of the plants growing here seem to have specific patches where they grow. These seem to be able to grow on the hottest, driest parts of the hill.

These are caudiciform plants, meaning that they have a large round underground root. This is what the leaf looks like: they are easy to miss when they are not flowering because they look just like blades of grass, especially when they are growing in among grass clumps and you don't realise that they are even there until they start flowering.

Each plant produces a single flowering stem that has many branches with little yellow flowers at the tip and this is another spring plant that flowers before it makes leaves and the plants with leaves seem to be young plants that are not yet old enough to flower.