[family HYACINTHACEAE]

Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (K)
Collection
Flora of Tropical East Africa
Resource Type
Reference Sources
Entry From
Flora of Tropical East Africa, page 1, (1996) Author: Brita Stedje, Ph.D.
Names
[family HYACINTHACEAE]
Information
Herbs with bulbs. Leaves in a basal rosette from the apex of the bulb or lacking, filiform, lanceolate or cordate, with or without spots, sometimes with papillae or hairs. Scape leafless. Inflorescence most often a raceme or a spike, rarely much branched and complex, if much branched then leaves lacking or strongly reduced. Flowers greenish to white or yellowish, purplish to purple or blue, often with a green or dark midrib. Perianth-segments 6, free or fused into a shorter or longer tube. Ovaries with 1-many ovules per locule. Fruit a loculicidal capsule, rarely schizocarpous. Seeds black and subglobular or flattened, sometimes winged.
Range
The family comprises ± 40 genera and some 900 SPECIES widely distributed in temperate to tropical regions, with the highest diversity in southern Africa and in a region from the Mediterranean to SW. Asia. In East Africa there are 9 genera and ± 31 SPECIES. Bowiea, Schizobasis, Albuca and Drimiopsis are African with centres of diversity in South Africa. Ledebouria is mainly African with an extension to India. Dipcadi, Drimia, Scilla and Ornithogalum range from South Africa to the Mediterranean; Scilla and Drimia are also found in Asia. Except for the two anomalous genera Bowiea and Schizobasis, the family can be recognized by having bulbs, the leaves in a basal rosette and the flowers in a spike or a raceme at the end of a leafless scape.
[family HYACINTHACEAE]
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