It was love at first sight indeed! On my walk this morning, I chanced upon this beautiful muddy patch with numerous Crinum ornatum (Family = Amaryllidaceae). I had no idea what plant it was. I was just attracted to their super bright white flowers with broad pink stripes. Immediately, I started walking back home, with a quickly hatched ‘captain-evil” plan. Get my machete as quickly as possible, dig a few out and take them home before that route becomes busy. Ok, I admit, my “plant ecology” brain wasn’t working as I was overjoyed with my evil plan. Then love at first sighted started turning sour! Over 10 minutes of digging, and with badly bruised palm, then damn, oh its a deep rooted bulb plant! I had to reluctantly give up to go look for better digging tool. Suddenly, my ecology brain got activated. I have already compiled a species list for all plant species in the Coastal Savanna of Ghana (more of this next week). Maybe I should check up what species that is and perhaps I shouldn’t “steal” any as it may be endangered. It’s growing in a wet/marshy areas marked by the Ga East Assembly as “protected wetland zone”. But my coastal savanna species list has about 566 species, so which one can it be? As it turned out, there are only two Crinum species recorded in the coastal savanna of Ghana (C. ornatum and C. zeylanicum). Crinum zeylanicum is not assessed by IUCN whereas C. ornatum is designated as “least concern” (no need to worry about it for now). It seems the centre of distribution of the species is Ivory Coast, Ghana and Togo. So yeah, am so going back to get a few of these lovely fellas for my house for sure! But for now, let me share my new found love!
Crinum Ornatum ( (Aiton) Herb, Map: https://www.gbif.org/, Credit: Mohammed Armani