Bulbil Bugle-lily

It is a perennial herb growing from a fibrous-coated corm and growing to a maximum height well over one meter when in flower, sometimes reaching two meters. Each corm produces three or four erect, lance-shaped leaves that measure up to 60 centimeters long by 6 wide. They have thickened midribs and margins. The inflorescence is an open spike of 8 to 25 flowers which may be in shades of orange to reddish or purplish. The flower is up to 8 centimeters long, with a long, tubular throat and spreading tepals. The flowers sometimes yield capsule fruits which contain seed, but the plant often reproduces via bulbils (strictly speaking, cormlets) that form in clusters in the axils of bracts at nodes along the peduncle. The bulbils can sprout if dropped into the soil, sometimes forming dense colonies, as can sections of corm that are chopped and dispersed by plowing or by non-intensive feeding by root-eating animals. In its native habitat, the plant is valuable as food for local mole-rats (Cryptomys and Georychus species), and for Cape porcupines (Hystrix africaeaustralis)

Like some other Watsonia species, in suitable climates, W. meriana can take hold in the wild as a weedy introduced species. It has become habituated along the southern coast of Australia, in New Zealand, on the North Coast of California, on the west coast of Portugal, in Madeira and in Galicia. …