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Plant Highlight: Lachenalia aloides
by Brian Kemble
Taxonomic placement and area of occurrence
Lachenalia is a genus of bulbs, currently placed in the subfamily Scilloideae within the Asparagus family, but formerly in the family Hyacinthaceae. Of the 133 species recognized in the 2012 monograph of the genus, the great majority come from the winter-rainfall region in western South Africa, though a few come from farther east, or northward into Namibia. Most of the species have short flowers adapted for insect pollination, but a few have longer tubular flowers that attract sunbirds as pollinators. One of the latter is Lachenalia aloides, which grows on granite hillsides in the southwestern corner of South Africa, near Cape Town.
About the name
The name “aloides” refers to the tubular aloe-like flowers, although this plant is not closely related to the aloes. A synonym is Lachenalia tricolor, and although this is an old name, going back to 1794, aloides is even older and thus has priority, despite the fact that it was originally placed in a different genus (named as Phormium aloides in 1781).
About the plant
Lachenalia aloides goes completely dormant during the summer months, sending up new leaves in the fall and growing through the winter months and into the spring. Plants offset readily to make a clump, with each bulb producing only two leaves each year. Each leaf wraps around like a sheath in its lower portion, with the inflorescence later emerging from the hollow cylinder in the middle. Above this sheathing part, the leaf widens and arches out, with the blade extending laterally. The upper surface of the blade often sports purple splotches, though it may sometimes be unspotted. The leaf dimensions are quite variable, with their length ranging from 3.15 to 8½ inches (8 to 22 cm), and their width varying between .24 inches and 1.6 inches (.6 to 4 cm).
About the flower
L. aloides is winter-flowering, with the peak bloom in South Africa coming in July. This would correspond to January in the Northern Hemisphere, but our plant at the Ruth Bancroft Garden is a little later than this, with the peak bloom in March. The cylindrical unbranched flower stalk emerges from between the leaves and rises to a height of 2⅓ to 5½ inches (6 to 14 cm). The lower part of the stalk is light green, often with purplish blotches, and the upper part may be greenish yellow or flushed red, orange, or purple. The tubular flowers are initially angled upward, but they soon pivot outward and then downward, so that by the time they open they are pendulous. The flower’s 3 outer tepals* are .6 to .67 inches long (15 to 17 mm), and they are either yellow throughout or red-orange at the base fading to yellow toward the tips. At the tepal tip, there is a mound-like swelling with a green coloration. The 3 inner tepals are considerably longer, with a length of 1 to 1.1 inches (26 to 28 mm), and these are yellow to greenish-yellow, with slightly spreading rounded tips that are often red or purplish red, though this is not always the case.
About the fruits and seeds
The fruits of Lachenalia aloides are oval capsules from .35 to .55 inch long (9 to 14 mm). Within are the small, round, glossy-black seeds.
Plants in cultivation
In a Mediterranean climate, this is an easy species to grow, as long as it gets plenty of sun and good drainage. It can tolerate dips below freezing in winter, as long as the temperature quickly rises above freezing when the morning arrives. It is an excellent choice for a rock garden, and although it is dormant during the summer months, it does not mind if some water is applied for the sake of other plants in the bed.
* In many flowers, the perianth (the “floral envelope”) consists of two layers: the sepals (the outer layer, often leaf-like and protectively wrapped around the developing petals) and the petals (the inner layer, often colorful and serving as “flags” to attract pollinators). In Lachenalia, as with many monocots, the perianth has 6 segments, 3 outer and 3 inner, but it is hard to say if these are sepals or petals. Thus, they are referred to by the neutral term “tepals”.
