Flora of North America species comparison

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Muscari

grape-hyacinth
Habit Herbs perennial, scapose, from brown, tunicate, ovoid bulbs, with or without offsets (bulblets).
Leaves

(1–)2–7, basal;

blade linear, sometimes sulcate, glabrous, rather fleshy.
Scape

terete.
Inflorescences

terminally racemose, many-flowered, dense, bracteate, usually elongating in fruit;

distal flowers smaller, sterile, differing in color, forming a tuft (coma);

bracts minute.
Flowers

fragrant;

perianth tubular to urceolate, usually constricted basally;

tepals 6, connate most of their length, distal portions distinct, reflexed, short, toothlike;

stamens 6, epitepalous, in 2 rows, included;

anthers dark blue, dorsifixed, globose;

ovary superior, green, 3-locular, inner sepal nectaries present;

style 1;

stigma 3-lobed.
Fruits

capsular, obtusely 3-angled, papery, dehiscence loculicidal.
Seeds

6, black, globose, wrinkled to reticulate.
x

= 9.

Muscari
Distribution
from USDA
temperate Europe; n Africa; sw Asia [Introduced in North America; expected introduced elsewhere]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Species ca. 30 (3 in the flora).

Various species and cultivated forms of Muscari are commonly grown for their early spring flowers. They may reseed in the flora area, but they are mostly transported in soil containing the bulblets.

Muscari armeniacum Baker has been attributed to the flora, but no definite records of naturalized plants have been found. Herbarium specimens of that species are difficult to distinguish from those of M. neglectum, but live specimens of M. armeniacum have much paler blue flowers (A. Huxley et al. 1992).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Tepals of fertile flowers pale to olive brown, sterile flowers bright violet, shorter than the 6–25 mm ascending pedicels.
M. comosum
1. Tepals of fertile and sterile flowers blue, longer than the 1–4(–5) mm declined, nodding, or spreading pedicels.
→ 2
2. Racemes 12–20-flowered; leaf blades 3–8 mm wide; perianth tubes of fertile flowers globose, sky blue.
M. botryoides
2. Racemes 20–40-flowered; leaf blades 2–4(–5) mm; perianth tubes of fertile flowers obovoid to oblong-urceolate or cylindric, blackish blue.
M. neglectum
Source FNA vol. 26, p. 316. Authors: Gerald B. Straley†, Frederick H. Utech.
Parent taxa Liliaceae
Subordinate taxa
M. botryoides, M. comosum, M. neglectum
Name authority Miller: Gard. Dict. Abr. ed. 4, vol. 2. (1754)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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