New species of Moraea (Iridaceae: Iridoideae), with range extensions and miscellaneous notes for southern African species

Abstract

Three new species are described in the largely sub-Saharan genus Moraea Mill. (± 200 spp.), all from its centre of diversity in the winter rainfall region of southern Africa. Moraea pearsonii, from Hottentotskloof near Ceres in Western Cape, flowers in late November and December when its leaves are ± dry, and has small, pale lilac, stellate flowers with the style branches each divided to the base into filiform arms.  Moraea tanquana, from the Tankwa River Basin in Northern Cape, resembles the southern Namaqualand M. deserticola but has broad, plane leaves, short anthers exserted from a shallower floral cup and a short style. In section Acaules, M. longipes from Namaqualand stands out in its early flowering habit, a stem consisting of a single long intemode reaching well above the ground, short style and unusually long anthers. Moraea jarmilae described from Ox Bow, Lesotho in 2002, is conspecific with M. albicuspa and is reduced to synonymy. Significant range extensions are reported for M. elsiae, M. falcifolia, M. pseudospicata, M. spathulata, M. tricolor, M. vegeta, M. verecunda, M. vespertina and M. vlokii. A yellow-flowered morph, local in the Perdebont Valley of the Little Karoo, is reported for the first time in typically blue- to violet-flowered M. bipartita, as well as the occurrence of a hybrid swarm, rare in Moraea, between M. bipartita and M. polyanthos.