Micranthus is a cormous genus in the Iridaceae family with three species originating in the Cape Province of South Africa. This genus has small flowers in a spike that are blue, white, or purple. Growing mainly on sandstone soils, often in damp places, they flower in early summer.
Micranthus alopecuroides grows from 25 to 40 cm high and has sword-shaped leaves and pale to deep blue flowers in two-ranked spikes. It is founds on sandstone soils in the southwestern Cape.
Micranthus junceus has slender hollow and terete leaves and usually dark blue flowers. It grows on wet, seasonally marshy sites on granite or sandstone soils in a broader range (Bokkeveld Mountains to Riversdale.) Photos by Cameron McMaster taken in the Overberg.
Micranthus tubulosus grows on clay and granitic soils in renosterveld in the northwest and southwest Cape. Flowers in two ranked spikes are blue to mauve and fragrant. Leaves are tubular and hollow.
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