Plants with hysteranthous leaves, solitary or clump-forming, inflorescence up to 80mm high.
Tuber simple, lobed or with stolons, pyriform to irregular in shape, up to 30mm long and 15mm wide, with short wiry roots; stolons up to 50mm long and 3mm diameter; skin light brown, interior whitish to pale pink, growing point basal to lateral.
Old leaf sheaths up to 70mm long, smooth to fibrous, light to greyish-brown.
Leaf one per growing point, erect; contemporary leaf sheath exserted up to 30mm, 1mm diameter, white at the base, becoming pale green above, sometimes densely covered with red striations giving a purple appearance, glabrous; lamina ovate to orbicular cordate, 22mm from the apex to the base and 17mm wide, glabrous or occasionally with a few scattered curly hairs especially along the margin; abaxial surface similar in colour to the leaf sheath or with a light silvery-grey sheen, adaxial surface glaucous, frequently bearing 2-18 enations; enations unbranched or shortly branched near the apex, irregular in size and shape, up to 25mm long and 2mm wide, the longest, near the base of the lamina, flat, glabrous or occasionally with a few scattered hairs.
Peduncular bract exserted 5-10mm, ovate, acute, with a retrorse apex, fleshy, bright green or reddish tinged.
Peduncle up to 50mm long, 1mm diameter, green covered with red streaking more dense at the base Raceme conical, up to 25mm long and 25mm wide, with up to 35 flowers.
Bracts triangular, attenuate, apex twisted, 1.5mm long, membranous, whitish with a red midnerve.
Pedicels up to 7mm long, erecto-patent.
Flowers becoming spreading with a triangular outline when fully opened,up to 12mm diameter, sweet scented.
Tepals dimorphic, white with a green midnerve and varying amounts of red streaking;outer tepals spreading with recurved apices, elliptic,acute, 7mm long and 2mm wide, inner erecto-patent, not hiding the stamens, spathulate with irregularly fimbriate apices, 5mm long, 2mm wide.
Filaments dimorphic, adnate 1mm up the tepals, white with varying amounts of maroon streaking; the outer ovate, 1.5mm long, the inner broadest at the base and gradually narrowing to the anther; anthers white to yellowish.
Ovary ovoid to globose, 2mm long and wide, green with maroon streaking.
Style cylindrical, 2.5mm long, white.
Flowering time: January to April.
Leafing period: April to October.
Distriblition and habitat: E.alcicorne has a wide distribution in the arid parts of the Cape winter rainfall area, extending from northern Namaqualand to the Worcester district in the south and eastwards to the Willowmore district. It occurs on both clayey and sandy soils (Figure147).
Diagnostic features: The small, ovate, glaucous, leaf with flat, branched or unbranched enations makes E.alcicorne easy to recognize in the vegetative stage (Figure148).
Duthie's(1940) suggestion that a specimen which Dinter found north of the Orange River with enations might be E.alcicorne remains to be confirmed. This specimen was presumably lost during World War 2 and no other records exist for Eriospermum species with enations in Namibia.
Reference: Pauline L. Perry, A REVISION OF THE GENUS ERIOSPERMUM (Eriospermaceae)
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