A PRESENTATION on “Geophytic Adaptations of lilies to African environments” by Dr Ezekeil Kwembeya, Curator of the National Herbarium, will take place on Thursday, 15 February 2007 at 19:30 in the auditorium of the National Botanic Research Institute at 8 Orban Street.
Geophytes are plants with subterranean storage organs such as bulbs, tubers, rhizomes and corms. In Africa, geophytes have diversified into several forms that are each adaptively specialised to a specific environmental niche. Although biogeographically widespread, they are common in areas with strong seasonality such as the Sudano-Zambesian Tropical Africa, Succulent Karoo and the Cape Winter Rainfall Zone of South Africa. In this presentation, geophyte character diversity will be illustrated. The adaptive ability of lilies, in particular, will be discussed in the context of the most popular hypotheses for their evolution.