New species of Sparaxis and Ixia (Iridaceae: Ixioideae) from Western Cape, South Africa, and taxonomic notes on Ixia and Gladiolus

Abstract

Sparaxis auriculata is a new species of this western Cape and western Karoo genus. It resembles S. villosa (Burm.f.) Goldblatt in its flowers but is probably allied to S. galeata (Jacq.) Ker Gawl. Sparaxis metelerkampiae, currently a subspecies of S. variegata Sweet is raised to species rank. We propose changes to the infrageneric classification of the southern African winter rainfall genus Ixia, and describe a new species, I. aurea. It is related to I. odorata Ker Gawl. but differs in the larger deep yellow or orange flowers which are unscented. In Gladiolus, we propose the new name, G. saxatilis, for the Mpumalanga endemic, originally described as G. lithicola Goldblatt and J.C.Manning, a homonym for an Ethiopian species.