Tritonia dubia/Ixia pumilio
Mary Sue Ittner (Sun, 26 Apr 2009 22:20:36 PDT)

Hi David,

Tritonia dubia.

Distribution: Eastern Cape Province, (Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage
Districts) of South Africa.

Morphologically the species links Tritonia and Ixia. This is the only
species of Tritonia with wholly actinomorphic flowers. It has the flower
coloring typical of a Tritonias, salmon pink or orange pink with dark veins.

Flowers: a widely cup-shaped and later almost salver shaped perianth, and
erect, centrally placed stamens and style. Bracts to 10 mm long (no color
mentioned.) Leaves are 5 to 8, suberect or spreading, lanceolate-ensiform
100-160 x 3-8 mm. Capsules are elongated ellipsoid, more or less 25 mm.
long. Flowers July to September. There is a figure in the Flora of
Southern Africa, Ixioideae. Perhaps I can get Bob to scan it for me and
send it to you privately.

Ixia pumilio is described as old rose with conspicuous darker median veins.
It is known only from its type locality, the banks of Breed River south of
Worcester where it grows in deep sand. It flowers late August to September.
Leaves are 3 or 4, linear, 2 to 5 mm. wide, loosely twisted, bracts opaque,
light brown with dark veins. There is a figure of it in Goldblatt, P. &
Snijman, D. 1985. New species and notes on the southern African genus Ixia
L. (Iridaceae). South African Journal of Botany 51: 66-70. This is not a
reference I have a copy of.

Since there are no pictures or drawings in any of my books of Ixia pumilio,
I can't compare the two visually, but the Ixia monograph says it is closely
allied to Ixia latifolia, mostly differing in its flower color. Here is
Bill Richardson's description of it.

http://suite101.com/article.cfm/bulbs_and_plants/…

And Dash's picture:
http://mainlyamaryllidsgarden.com/winternotes.php

I've struggled over this one a lot and the pictures of both on the
Internet are very similar. I have decided that my plants were really
Tritonia dubia. And since one of the ways to tell Ixias from Tritonias is
that Ixias are actinomorphic and Tritionias zygomorophic, but T. dubia is
the former, it makes it even more difficult. T. dubia does not have
sclerenchyma strands in the leaf margins which is a characteristic of
Ixias. I have no idea what that means, but if you do perhaps that will
help. Your description of the size of the leaves and the color of the
bracts may be helpful. Alberto's description of how to tell the two genera
apart (Ixias grouped on the end of the stem and Tritionia more spread along
the stem) may be helpful too, but a few Ixias I have seen and grown are
also spread along the stem. Stamens are described as symmetrically disposed
in Ixia and irregularly disposed, often curved towards upper lobe in
Tritonia, but it isn't clear in the description of T. dubia that this is
true for this species (centrally placed stamens and style).

I hope this has helped.

Mary Sue