Flora of North America species comparison

fleshy or fibrous.

cylindrical.

subterranean.

spreading, semisucculent, 8–40(–47) × 0.5–6.5(–9.3) cm;

blade usually spotted or speckled with maroon, shallowly channeled, oblanceolate to linear-lanceolate, margins entire or with cartilaginous prickles.

in rosettes, flexible, thin or succulent;

blade linear-lanceolate to oblanceolate, often glaucous, sometimes mottled, base membranous [fibrous in species of s Mexico], margins entire, papillose, or dentate, with cartilaginous teeth, apex a soft point.

4.5  13.8 dm.

14–68 cm, bearing 10–61 closely spaced flowers.

racemose or spikate, bracteate;

proximal flowers occasionally pedicellate.

sessile or pedicellate, nearly erect, slender, with sweet, fruity odor;

tepals green;

perianth tube 0.9–2.3 × 0.3–0.6 cm;

limb lobes erect, 0.4–0.8 cm;

filaments inserted near base of tube, bent in bud, exceeding tube by 1.2–3.1 cm;

ovary 4–10 mm;

style shorter than stamens, exceeding tube by 0.6–2.3 cm;

stigma white, 3-lobed, lobes reflexed.

usually solitary at node, nocturnal;

tepals connate basally into tube, green, sometimes tinged with brown, or pale yellow, or white to pink;

perianth tube narrowly to broadly funnelform;

limb lobes erect or recurved, oblong;

stamens 6;

filaments inserted on tube, in bud straight or bent, usually exserted at anthesis;

ovary inferior;

style usually exserted at maturity;

stigma capitate, 3-angled and furrowed, or 3-lobed with lobes reflexed.

capsular, globose to cylindrical, dehiscence loculicidal.

globose, 1–1.7 cm diam. 2n = 60.

flat, triangular, 0.3–0.6 cm on radial margins.

= 30.