Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden, South Africa

Common name: Vuvuzela Moraea

Family: Iridaceae (Iris)

Distribution: Western Cape

Habitat: Renosterveld, in loamy clay soils to sandy washes on flats and lower slopes

IUCN Red list: Not evaluated

National red list: Endangered

Life form: Geophyte (bulb, corm or tuber - seasonally dormant)

Comments: This diminutive Moraea in the Galaxia group was discovered by Anso le Roux, a remarkable field botanist living in Rawsonville. The species was only described in 2010 by John Manning and Peter Goldblatt. The unusual name was chosen to commemorate the noisy plastic trumpets so characteristic of the 2010 Soccer World Cup hosted by South Africa, selected by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GTZ) that became the patron of this flowering beauty by paying a substantial donation to BIOPAT to foster taxonomy and biodiversity research in South Africa.
Due to the loss of habitat by the time of discovery and the highly localised distribution, the species was immediately assessed as Endangered.
Image © Charles Stirton from iNaturalist CC-by-NC