Plants with hysteranthous leaves, solitary, inflorescence up to 120 mm high.
Tuber simple, pyriform to oblong or irregular in shape, up to 70 mm long and 40 mm wide; skin brown, interior pink becoming maroon red in the older part; growing point lateral to basal.
Old leaf sheaths up to 100 mm long and 5 mm diameter widening to 18 mm at ground level, light brown, membranous.
Leaf solitary, sub-erect or spreading horizontally; contemporary leaf sheath exserted up to 40 mm, up to 4 mm diameter, maroon red, glabrous or covered with curly, white hairs; lamina narrowly to broadly ovate-cordate, acute, up to 20 mm long and 15 mm wide, apex often recurved, abaxial surface reddish-green, sparsely hairy, adaxial surface dark green, producing few to numerous branched enations, more or less terete, up to 45 mm long and 3 mm wide, dark green, fleshy, sparsely to densely covered with curly white hairs.
Peduncular bract barely exserted or up to 5 mm, upper 3 mm non-sheathing, ovate, apex acute, retrorse, green with red streaking, glabrous; margin red.
Peduncle 35-60 mm long, 1.0-1.5 mm diameter, glaucous with red striations, glabrous.
Raceme cylindrical with a pointed apex, up to 70 mm long, 25 mm wide at the base, with up to 21 flowers.
Bracts triangular, sometimes somewhat cymbiform or spurred, 1.0-1.5 mm long with acuminate apex, membranous, transparent with a reddish-brown midnerve.
Pedicels erecto-patent, arcuate, lower up to 10 mm long, upper slightly shorter.
Flowers triangular, spreading, up to 14 mm diameter.
Tepals dimorphic, connate for 1.5 mm at the base, white with a dark green midnerve overlaid with faint red striations; outer tepals spreading with a recurved sometimes slightly twisted apex, narrowly elliptic to linear, attenuate, 7-8 mm long and 2 mm wide, inner suberect, spathulate with a crisped, connivent apex, 6-7 mm long and 2 mm wide.
Filaments forming a ring round the ovary with anthers touching, subequal, outer adnate about 1 mm up the tepals, triangular, 2 mm long and 1.0-1.3 mm wide at the base, white with purple blotches; inner adnate nearly 2 mm up the tepals, 1.8 mm long and 1 mm wide at the base, white.
Ovary subglobose, 1.8 mm long and wide, dark green, spotted red between the locules.
Style cylindrical, 1.8 mm long, white.
Flowering time: March to April.
Leafing period: April to October.
Distribution and habitat: E.cervicorne is comparatively rare, centred in northern Namaqualand, where it has been found in loamy soil amongst granite rocks. It has outlying localities in the south near Bitterfontein and in the Tanqua Karoo (Figure 146).
Diagnostic features: E.cervicorne appears to be closest to E.multifidum and may be separated from that species by the less numerous, slightly broader and shorter enations which are sparsely to densely covered with curly white hairs, as opposed to the narrower, bright green, glabrous enations of E.multifidum. The inflorescence in E.cervicorne is less dense and the pedicels somewhat longer. The type specimen quoted by Marloth, no. 6983, was collected by Rev.G.Meyer near Steinkopf according to Marloth's description. However, the label on the Pretoria specimen records that it was from Springbok. A second specimen on the same sheet, no. 13416 is from Steinkopf. Although Marloth described the leaf and enations as glabrous, the usual long white hairs are clearly visible on the type specimen. The material at Stellenbosch was apparently produced from tubers cultivated over a number of years.
Reference: Pauline L. Perry, A REVISION OF THE GENUS ERIOSPERMUM (Eriospermaceae)
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