Afrocrocus is a deciduous cormous genus in the Iridaceae family with one species endemic to South Africa. As the name implies if has Crocus-like flowers. It is related to Syringodea but differs significantly in its corms and seed capsules.
Afrocrocus unifolius (Goldblatt) Goldblatt & J.C.Manning is found in the southwestern Karoo, on the Roggeveld Escarpment and adjacent mountain ranges where it grows in mainly clay soils in shrubland and flowers in early winter (May to early June). Plants grow from 5 to 12 cm high. Leaves are just beginning to emerge at flowering. Flowers are salver-shaped, pale to deep violet or white, sometimes darker at the base of the tepals with greenish yellow or orange oval shaped markings at the base. The corms are unusual and are described by Goldblatt and Manning in their book Iridaceae of southern Africa as "asymmetric, laterally compressed and lens-shaped with wide, fan-shaped basal ridge, axial in origin; tunics woody, slitting into fine parallel fibrils on basal ridge and into a fibrous neck at apex." Seeds are 2 mm in diameter, with a closely wrinkled surface and are sticky when fresh. Photos from iNaturalist were taken by Kevin Jolliffe in the Western Cape in June and Riaan van der Walt in the Roggeveld in June and shared under a CC BY-NC license.
