Unknown bulbous plant from Transvaal, South Africa

[Lvandelft]

Yesterday we saw at the weekly Show in Lisse an unknown bulbous plant.
This plant was found in Eastern Transvaal on grassland (meadow?), near a place called Amsterdam.
The plant shown is about 40 cm.high. The leaves were not visible now, but are grassy like.
Is there anybody who knows what it is?

[fermi de Sousa]

Hi Luit,
it's possibly some sort of Ornithogalum - anyone got a copy of "Cape Bulbs" handy??
cheers
fermi

[ArnoldT]

Luit:

If it is okay with you send me the images and I'll pass them along to my Pacific Bulb Society friends to see if any of them have an idea.  There are many South African bulb growers there.

Arnold140@verizon.net

Arnold T.

[Calvin Becker]

Luit

An Urginea or Drimia species?

I will have a look in my SA wildflower books and see if I can come up with an ID for you.

Cheers
Calvin

[alpines]

Albuca sp. maybe?
It's taller than any albuca I've ever seen but the buds are very similar.

[Lvandelft]

Thank you all for the reactions.

Now I received one PM and two reactions with Drimia or Urginea. These families are as far as I know very close and sometimes called so or so?
We in Holland think now that Drimia will be the right name for this plant but as there are many different Drimia, we just have to find out which one.

Abuca, Ornithogalum were all options, but short investigation learned that this could not be.

Arnold, I’ll send you a mail!

[anita]

Luit,
Doesn't look like the Urginea maritima I grow here as the petals lack that prominent stripe. I thought it looked more like one of the Mediterranean asphodel family. For example here's A. alba http://www.lambley.com.au/catalogue/asphodelus_albus. You can see that there is a strong similarity in the flowers, however most of the asphodels I'm familiar with flower with the leaves while your bulbs appear hysteranthous (flowering before the leaves). There are apparently some hysteranthous asphodel species that are found in Israel.
Anita

[wooden shoe]

I do agree with Anita that it's a member of the Asphodelaceae.

As far as I know the mediterranean varietes are more densely flowered or do have branched flowering stems. I have also never seen any bulbs on ground level in these varieties.
Maybe it is a member of the african Trachyandra, but I don't know anything about these species.
best luck,

Rob

[Oron Peri]

Cant be Asphodelaceae since it doesn't have leaves along the stems, it is Liliaceae.
looks like a Drimia.

[Lvandelft]

Thanks Anita, Rob and Oron for taking the time and think about the identification of this plant.
I was hoping that Arnold might probably find some one in S. Africa who can help, but he obviously did not get any response.
Last Monday our committee talked about the plant again and our taxonomist thinks it is probably Drimia sclerophylla or something rather close to it.
If I hear something more, I will inform about again in this place.

[ArnoldT]

I sent the images to two different South African members of the PBS and haven't heard back.  Could be they're  out in the field.

Arnold