Moraea bituminosa is a species of the genus Moraea

Moraea

Moraea is a genus of plants in the family Iridaceae. The genus name is a tribute to the English botanist Robert Moore.The technical botanical material in this entry is abstracted largely from “The Genera of Southern African Flowering Plants”-Description:...

in family Iridaceae

Iridaceae

The Iris family or Iridaceae is a family of perennial, herbaceous and bulbous plants included in the monocot order Asparagales, taking its name from the genus Iris. Almost worldwide in distribution and one of the most important families in horticulture, it includes more than 2000 species...

.

It is a corm

Corm

A corm is a short, vertical, swollen underground plant stem that serves as a storage organ used by some plants to survive winter or other adverse conditions such as summer drought and heat ....

ous geophyte 25 - 30 cm high with two leaves. The plant is sticky to the touch. Flowers are yellow with deep yellow nectar guides. The outer tepal

Tepal

Tepals are elements of the perianth, or outer part of a flower, which include the petals or sepals. The term tepal is more often applied specifically when all segments of the perianth are of similar shape and color, or undifferentiated, which is called perigone...

s are 22-32 mm long and inner tepals are 20 to 29 mm long.

It flowers from October to December with flowers opening in the afternoon. It is endemic to the Western Cape

Western Cape

The Western Cape is a province in the south west of South Africa. The capital is Cape Town. Prior to 1994, the region that now forms the Western Cape was part of the much larger Cape Province...

, from Bredasdorp

Bredasdorp

Bredasdorp is a town in the Southern Overberg region of the Western Cape, South Africa, and the main economic and service hub of that region. It lies on the northern edge of the Agulhas Plain, about south-east of Cape Town and north of Cape Agulhas, the southernmost tip of Africa.-History:The...

 in the south-east to Wellington

Wellington

Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...

 and Tulbagh

Tulbagh

Tulbagh is a town in the Tulbagh valley and is situated in the Witzenberg Local Municipality, with the valley called "Die Land van Waveren" locally. Closest towns are Wolseley, Prince Alfred's Hamlet, Gouda and Ceres in the Boland district of the Western Cape Province, South Africa.The valley has...

 in the north, on stony sandstone slopes. It was first described by Carolus Linnaeus the Younger

Carolus Linnaeus the Younger

Carl Linnaeus the Younger, Carl von Linné or Carolus Linnaeus the Younger was a Swedish naturalist...

 in 1782 as Iris bituminosa. In 1805, John Bellenden Ker Gawler

John Bellenden Ker Gawler

John Bellenden Ker, originally John Gawler was an English botanist born about 1764 in Ramridge, Andover, Hampshire and died in June 1842 in the same town. On 5 November 1804 he changed his name to Ker Bellenden, but continued to sign his name as Bellenden Ker until his death...

moved this species to its current name, Moraea bituminosa.