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Pillansia
Pillansia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Iridaceae, first described as a genus in 1914. It contains only one known species, Pillansia templemannii, which is endemic to the Western Cape province in South Africa. It is an evergreen, perennial plant that has an underground corm, about five fibrous, strap-like leaves, and a panicle-like inflorescence, consisting of highly distinctive, star-symmetrical, cup-shaped orange flowers of approximately 5 cm (2.0 in) across, each with a floral tube of about 6 mm (0.24 in) long and 6 rounded slightly cup-shaped tepals. It flowers in October and November, but only after a fire burned down the surrounding woody vegetation. It is called fireflag or pillansia in English.
The fireflag is an endemic of the coastal mountains in the southwest of the Western Cape province, ranging from the Kogelberg to the Kleinrivier Mountains, where it prefers the cooler sandstone slopes facing south at altitudes between 300–700 m (980–2,300 ft) but it also occurring at lower elevations near the coast. The flowers are visited by bee species and monkey beetles. The plants can suffer from red spider mites and several insects including aphids, mealybugs, snout beetles and lily borers, and are also eaten by slugs, molerats and cape porcupines. It has a stable population and is considered not to be threatened. The Red List of South African Plants assessed the species as Least Concern (LC).
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Pillansia by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
