Flora of North America species comparison

green, extensively branched, forming large clumps, 2–4 cm diam., with pale leaf scars.

2–3-branched, solid, 10–15(–20+) dm.

aerial (or subterranean in Romulea), simple or branched, terete or variously compressed, angled or winged.

basal 4–6, erect, blade bright green, ensiform, 10–13 dm × 2–3 cm, apex slightly curved;

cauline with blade foliaceous, appearing as elongated spathe, 5–6.5 dm × 2–3 cm, not exceeding flowers.

basal and cauline, distichous;

proximal 2–3 sometimes membranous, not reaching much above ground;

others with open or closed sheaths, usually unifacial [bifacial or terete], oriented edgewise to the stem;

blade parallel-veined, plane or pleated, channeled.

2–3-flowered, branch units 1–2-flowered;

spathes tightly enclosing ovary and pedicel, 15–20 cm, subequal;

outer narrowly lanceolate, keeled, margins pale, narrow, inner margins translucent, broad, scarious.

umbellate, monochasial cymes (rhipidia), spikes, or solitary flowers;

rhipidia enclosed in 2, opposed, usually large, leafy to dry bracts (spathes);

flowers except for the first subtended by 1 floral bract;

spike flowers each subtended by 2, opposed bracts.

perianth blue or blue-purple;

floral tube tubular-prismatic, 9-ribbed and -grooved, 4–5 cm;

sepals blue or blue-purple with white streaks surrounding signal, oval to orbicular-oval, 9.5–11 × 4–5 cm, base abruptly attenuate into claw, apex obtusely angled, signal with raised, yellow, pubescent central ridge, claw green, striate, 4–4.5 × 1–1.2 cm;

petals erect or spreading-erect, spatulate, 7–8.5 × 2–3 cm, base cuneate, apex emarginate;

ovary bluntly 6-angled, 4–4.5 cm;

style blue-violet, keeled, 3.5–4 cm, raised above sepals, crests recurved, 1.5–2 cm, margins sharply and irregularly serrate;

stigmas 2-lobed with 2 triangular teeth;

pedicel columnar, 3.5–5 cm.

usually pedicellate [± sessile];

perianth actinomorphic or zygomorphic, petaloid, with 2 equal or unequal whorls of 3 tepals each [1 whorl of 6];

tepals usually large, showy, distinct or connate in tube;

stamens 3 [2], inserted at base of outer tepals or in tube, symmetrically arranged or unilateral, arcuate [declinate];

filaments distinct or partly to completely connate, sometimes weak, unable to support anthers;

anthers with 2 pollen sacs, extrorse, occasionally latrorse, usually dehiscing longitudinally [rarely apically];

ovary inferior [superior in Tasmanian Isophysis], 3-locular [1-locular];

placentation axile [parietal];

ovules 2–few, anatropous;

style single, filiform at least proximally, usually 3-branched or 3-lobed, branches either filiform, distally expanded, sometimes each divided in distal 1/2, stigmatic toward apices, or branches thickened, or flattened, petaloid, stigmas then abaxial below apices.

capsular, loculicidal, rarely indehiscent, firm to cartilaginous, occasionally woody.

drooping, bright green, ellipsoid, hexagonal in cross section, with 6 broad, rounded lobes, 8–10 × 3 cm, indehiscent;

after anthesis, flower stem elongates, arching downward to push capsule into water, where walls are broken down and as funiculus is broken, seed rises to surface.

in 2 rows per locule, brown, D-shaped, 8–10 mm wide, very corky.

globose to angular (prismatic) or discoid, sometimes broadly winged;

seed coat usually dry (rarely fleshy);

endosperm hard, with reserves of hemicellulose, oil, and protein;

embryo small.

= 44.