Plants with hysteranthous leaves, solitary, foliage up to 80 mm high.
Tuber irregularly-shaped, up to 45 mm wide and 25 mm high; skin light brown, interior red; growing point basal to lateral.
Old leaf sheaths up to 80 mm long, greyish-brown.
Leaf solitary; contemporary leaf sheath exserted 40 mm, wiry, 0.5 mm diameter, light brown, glabrous; lamina greatly reduced, ovate or orbicular-cordate, up to 6 mm across, dark green, glabrous, margin revolute; adaxial surface covered with about 20 enations, narrowly terete with 2 4 branches in the upper half, up to 20 mm long, barely 1 mm diameter, dark shiny green.
Peduncular bract not appearing above ground level.
Peduncle up to 40 mm long, 1.0 mm diameter, reddish, glabrous.
Raceme narrowly conical, compact, up to 28 mm long and 12 mm wide, with up to 28 flowers.
Bracts deltate attenuate, 1 mm long, membranous, with a reddish-brown midnerve, semi-amplexicaul, somewhat spurred.
Pedicels up to 2.5 mm long in flower, patent.
Flowers triangular, about 7 mm diameter.
Tepals dimorphic, white with a green and red flecked midnerve; outer erecto-patent, elliptic with rounded apex, 4.5 mm long and 2 mm wide, inner erect, spathulate with a slightly crimped, retrorse apex, 4.5 mm long and up to 2mm wide.
Filaments erect in a ring round the ovary, sub-equal, adnate to the base of the tepals for 1 mm; outer broadly lanceolate, 1.3 mm long and barely 1 mm wide, incurved, inner 1.5 mm long and less than 1 mm wide; anthers yellow.
Ovary globose, 1.5 mm long and wide, green.
Style cylindrical, 1.3 mm long, white.
Flowering time: March to April.
Leafing period: April to October.
Distribution and habitat: E.flabellatum appears to have a limited distribution in an area from the vicinity of Laingsburg to Barrydale in the southern part of the Great Karoo. It grows in dry stony areas among succulents and karroid bushes (Figure 138).
Diagnostic features: The leaf enations and small inflorescence make E.flabellatum clearly distinguishable from all other species with the exception of E.bowieanum. However the contemporary leaf sheath in E.flabellatum is longer, more wiry and light brown in colour in comparison to the thicker, white sheath of E.bowieanum. The leaf enations are more consistent in length, more slender and a dark, shiny green in E.flabellatum, not dull, glaucous green as in E.bowieanum. The inflorescence is spicate in E.bowieanum with small globose-like flowers wheras E.flabellatum has distinct pedicels and spreading flowers (Figure 140).
Reference: Pauline L. Perry, A REVISION OF THE GENUS ERIOSPERMUM (Eriospermaceae)
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