Dipcadi brevifolium
Author: Ivan Lätti
Photographer: Thabo Maphisa
Dipcadi brevifolium is commonly the slangui in Afrikaans, meaning snake onion for an unknown reason, but check around your feet when seeing it in the veld. This is one of thirteen South African Dipcadi species, geophytes here flowering in the Biedouw Valley in September.
The small bulbous plant grows an erect raceme, all the flowers facing to one side of the stem. The inside of the corollas is creamy green, the outside pale greyish green, the lobe tips curving out (Moriarty, 1997; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist).