Africa Wild

Index to Flowers in the Order Dipsacales

Family: Dipsacaceae
Scabiosa columbaria Wild Scabiosa https://africawild-forum.com/viewtopic.p ... 20#p176720
Scabiosa incisa Wild Scabiosa https://africawild-forum.com/viewtopic.p ... 44#p224244

Wild Scabiosa Scabiosa columbaria (Jonkmansknoop)
Order: Dipsacales. Family: Dipsacaceae

© Super Mongoose
Vaalkop Dam Nature Reserve, North West Province, South Africa

© mpostumus
Kruger National Park, Pretoriuskop area

Description
A Slender perennial herb. Herbaceous, rootstock woody; up to 1 m high, downy throughout. Leaves mainly in a basal rosette. Leaves deeply and irregularly lobed and concentrated around the lower part of the plant. Basal leaves usually stalkless, toothed, blunt, narrow-oval, up to 15 cm long x 4 cm wide; stem-leaves deeply lobed once or twice. Flowering stems are much-branched. The long slender stems have a terminal head of small flowers, surrounded by bristly bracts. The flowers are mostly pure white but occasional pink or lilac forms occur. Calyx with five long bristle-like lobes up to 1 cm long. Corolla somewhat two-lipped, white, irregularly 4-5-lobed, c 1 cm long, downy outside and inside. Stamens four, protruding. Ovary one-chambered with single ovule; stigma usually knob-shaped with groove on one side. Fruit dry, crowned with persistent calyx.

Distribution
From South Africa to Ethiopia, Near-East, North Africa and Europe. Provincial distribution in South Africa: Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape, North West.

Habitat
In open woodland, grassland and mountain slopes.

Nelspruit hillside © Richprins


Links:
http://www.sntc.org.sz/backup/flora/spe ... ?spid=3005

Wild Scabiosa Scabiosa incisa (Jonkmansknoop)
Order: Dipsacales. Family: Dipsacaceae

© nan
Kirstenbosch, Western Cape

Description
A straggling perennial to 80 cm with shortly hairy leaves, it forms a number of stems on the ground, which turn slightly woody with age at the base. The finely divided leaves form opposite each other along the lower part of the stems. Leaves are hairy and deeply once- or twice-lobed. The older leaves at the bottom of the stem turn brown and fall off as new fresh green leaves are formed. The soft leaves are slightly hairy at the top and bottom. The flowers are formed on long, naked stems from early spring to the middle of summer (September-December). The straggling stems vary in height but can stand up to 430 mm high with a single flowerhead at the tip. Flowers are white or mauve. A closer look at a flower reveals individual flowers that are crowded together to form dense, flattened flowerheads. The looser flowers along the outside have longer petals that form a frilly edge, whereas the flowers in the centre are much smaller and compact to form a tight button effect. After flowering, the seeds are formed in interesting rounded bristleheads, that slowly fall apart as the seeds ripen and are ready to be blown away by the wind.

Distribution
Endemic to the Westen Cape in South Africa. Scabiosa incisa occurs naturally in the coastal sands from Piketberg to Grahamstown.

Habitat
In deep sands between coastal scrub, often on limbstone.

Links: John Manning: Field Guide to Fynbos