Leo's Mystery Strumaria
Mary Sue Ittner (Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:22:51 PST)

Hi,

I was going to move Leo's Strumaria pictures to the Strumaria page. I too
have the book Diana referred to, Systematics of Hessea, Strumaria, and
Carpolyza.

I looked at the diagrams and read the text and it seems to me that the
descriptions are backwards to what you would expect to fit the names
of the two subspecies and opposite to what David Victor suggested. I'm
really puzzled.

In the book Snijman writes:
Strumaria discifera subsp. discifera -- "Style smoothly bulbiform or
irregularly thickened and longitudinally ridged in the proximal quarter."
Strumaria discifera subsp. bulbifera -- "Style discoid proximally, with a
prominent irregular rim on the disc distally, abruptly narrowed into a
slender column above."

The Color Encyclopedia of Cape Bulbs:
Strumaria discifera subsp. bulbifera -- "flowers with the stylar swelling
topped by a frilly rim"
Strumaria discifera subsp. discifera -- "flowers with the stylar swelling
smooth above"

What David said was:

Can anyone help me figure this out? Could she have switched the
descriptions in the first book which was repeated in the Color Encyclopedia
since it copied from the monograph?

Mary Sue