Boophone disticha

Boophone disticha is a bulbous tropical and subtropical flowering plant, native to Africa. It is commonly called the century plant^[3] or tumbleweed.^[4] The bulb contains alkaloids with analgesic and hallucinogenic properties and has a wide range of uses in traditional African medicine, as well as being used to make an arrow poison.

Boophone disticha is readily identified by its fan-like appearance of two tightly packed rows of about fifteen leaves in each row, and its up to 30 cm (12 in) diameter bulb half-protruding from the ground.^[5] It produces a single inflorescence, an umbel of about fifty pink, six-petaled flowers,^[6] before the arrival of the season's new leaves. While maturing the fruiting head's pedicels undergo a stiffening process and remarkable elongation to some 30 cm (12 in). When the fruiting head separates at its junction with the stalk, it forms a tumbleweed, easily moved by light breezes, scattering seeds as it rolls.

Boophone disticha was first collected from South Africa by Swedish botanist Carl Peter Thunberg and described by Carl Linnaeus the Younger in 1782 as Amaryllis disticha.^[2] Since that time, it has been placed in the genera Brunsvigia and Haemanthus, finally coming to rest as Boophone. The genus name itself was spelled in three different ways (Boophone, Boophane and Buphane) by the author William Herbert, straining the procedures of the rules of nomenclature. The etymology of the genus is from the Greek bous = 'ox', and phontes = 'killer of', a clear warning that eating the plant can be fatal to livestock.^[7]

Boophone disticha is native from south Sudan to South Africa.^[2] It is found in Angola, Botswana, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa (in the provinces of Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Western Cape), Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.^[1] It grows wild in dry savannas, grasslands, and glades in forests.^[4]

The bulb of Boophone disticha has a wide range of uses in traditional African medicine.^[8] It contains alkaloids such as lycorine, undulatine, buphanisine, buphanamine, nerbowdine, crinine, crinamidine, distichamine, 3O-acetyl-nerbowdine, buphacetine and buphanidrine which have analgesic and hallucinogenic properties.^[9]

It has been used locally to make an arrow poison and in the treatment of equine piroplasmosis.^[10][9]

The Khoi, Bushmen and Bantu were aware of its poisonous nature and used parts of the plant medicinally and as an arrow poison. The principal compounds are eugenol – an aromatic, volatile oil smelling of cloves and having analgesic properties, and the toxic alkaloids buphandrin, crinamidine and buphanine, the latter having an effect akin to that of scopolamine and if taken in quantity may lead to agitation, stupor, strong hallucinations and (if over-ingested) coma or death.^[11]

Material from this species' bulb was associated with preservation of the Khoi Kouga mummy found in the Langkloof.

Plant

• Edgeways view of young inflorescence emerging from bulb charred by bush fire
• Same bulb, flatways, showing inflorescence sandwiched by broad bracts
• Buds of young inflorescence having emerged from enclosing bracts
• Mature inflorescence (flowers open), showing basal bracts and embryonic leaf fan
• Densely-packed flowers: contrast of deep pink flowers and white anthers
• Flowers viewed in profile, showing trumpet shape and protruding stamens
• Single mature, closed flower bud
• Single bursting flower bud revealing long white anthers
• Single flower with half-concealed monkey beetles
• Small stand of bulbs - 3 in flower, one running to seed
• Lone bulb growing on recently-burned upland meadow
• Single bulb growing chasmophytically on dolomitic limestone in light shade
• Habit of ripening, tumbleweed-type infructescence
• Close-up of infructescence
• Detail of elongated pedicels and 3-angled seed capsules
• Close-up of ripe 3-horned capsules
• Single, dehiscent, tricorn seed capsule revealing 3 seeds
• Large (circa 1 cm) globose seeds (with scale reference)
• Young leaf fan emerging from bulb charred in brush fire
• Mature leaf fan, showing characteristic distichous phyllotaxis
• Atypical specimen, showing simultaneously inflorescence, leaves and last year's dead leaves

Insect visitors

• Larvae of Diaphone eumela, the cherry spot moth, feeding on inflorescence
• Diaphone eumela (cherry spot/lily borer) adult
• Adults of the scarab beetle Cyrtothyrea testaceoguttata mating on inflorescence
• Long-shot of inflorescence covered in mating Cyrtothyrea testaceoguttata
• Scarab (Monkey beetle sp.) clinging to centre of single flower

• Media related to Boophone disticha at Wikimedia Commons
• Dressler, S.; Schmidt, M. & Zizka, G. (2014). "Boophone disticha". African plants – a Photo Guide. Frankfurt/Main: Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg.