Species Info

Species name:

Romulea bulbocodium   (L.) Sebastiani & Mauri

Principal Synonym:

Ixia bulbocodium

Plant Family:

Iridaceae   (Iris Family)

General names:

Violet Romulea

Maltese name:

Żagħfran tal-Blat taċ-ċentru isfar

Status:

Indigenous. Originating from the Maltese islands

Frequency in the wild:

Very Common     Common     Frequent     Scarce     Rare     Very Rare     Extinct

Growth form:

GEOPHYTE (Bulbous/Rhizomous plants)

Legal Protection:

Not Protected by Law (LN200/2011 or LN311/2006)

Red List 1989:

Not listed in the Flora section of the National Red Data Book (Lanfranco, 1989)

Flowering Time:

Feb

Remarks:

The species Romulea bulbocodium was recorded from the Maltese islands in very old literature (almost 100 years ago) such as in the floristic work by Delicata (1853) and J.Borg (1927). Haslam et. al also cites this species in their flora (1977), but they do not indicate if they have personally seen the species, and it stands to understand that they simply cited the old records. Eventually, this taxon have disappeared from recent work and not even mentioned in the Red Data book for the Maltese islands (1989). However, Stephen Mifsud have found a number of specimens which flowered relatively early, had relatively large flowers (2-3cm) with a yellow throat, but more importantly, a stigma that was distinctly longer from the anthers. The sides of the outer tepals also matches the characters of this species as they were yellowish-green. In all keys I have studied, R. bulbocodium is distinguished from the R. ramiflora/R. columnae group by having style longer from the anthers, and hence these specimens shoud truly correspond to these species.

Photo Gallery (5 images)

Links & Further info

Buy Seeds and Docs

Submit further info on this species