Name
Pyjama Flower
Latin Name
Androcymbium melanthioides
Description
The Pyjama Flower is a perennial herb; the rootstock is a small corm and up to 1,5 cm in diameter. About three linear green leaves are borne at the surface of the soil and five or six large mauve or white bracts, finely striped with green, which enclose a crowded head of about six flowers.
This flower is not conspicuous, and one comes upon it quite suddenly, like a great waterlily nestling close to the ground. This plant flowers in July to September.
Habitat
The Pyjama Flower grows in patches in dry stony semi-karroid or open grassveld areas.
Field Notes
The Pyjama Flower is also known as Little-men-in-a-boat due to the intricacies of its floral parts. The Pyjama Flower occurs in South Africa in the Western and Eastern Cape, Kwazulu Natal and the orange Free State and also in Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
