Lapeirousia Genus

Lapeirousia is a genus of about 26 species of cormous plants in the family Iridaceae (the iris family), order Asparagales, native entirely to sub-Saharan Africa. The plants are typically small and bear deciduous leaves. Their corms are small, campanulate to triangular in outline with a flat base, and are covered in hard, woody tunics of which the innermost layers are entire. Leaves are basal, often solitary, and may be plane and falcate or linear and ribbed.

The flowers are held on scapes that may be subterranean or aerial, simple or branched, and are arranged in a spike — sometimes contracted and fasciculate — or in a corymbose panicle. Firm, green bracts subtend the flowers, either small and subequal or with the outer bract greatly enlarged, often keeled, crisped, and ribbed. The perianth may be actinomorphic or zygomorphic, with a tube ranging from short to very long; when the tube is slender and cylindrical it is adapted to pollination by long-tongued flies. The stamens are symmetrically arranged, and the fruit is a membranous capsule containing many small seeds that are either globose or angled by mutual pressure.

Around one-third of the approximately 26 described species are endemic to the Cape Floristic Region's fynbos biome, one of the world's most species-rich and threatened vegetation types. Common vernacular names are diverse and regional, including painted petals, cabong, chabi, and koringblom (Afrikaans for "wheat flower"). The flowers are commonly scented, though often only at certain times of day.

The genus was established by the French botanist Pierre André Pourret in 1788, published in the Histoire et Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences de Toulouse, and named in honour of fellow French botanist Philippe Picot de Lapeyrouse. Several genera — including Anomatheca, Anomaza, Meristostigma, and Sophronia — have been subsumed into Lapeirousia over time.