Iridaceae |
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Goldblatt, P. (1995) Iridaceae in Flora of Somalia 4: 62-67 Plants usually perennial herbs, rarely annuals or shrubs, with rhixomes, bulbs, or corms. Leaves basal and cauline, sometimes the lower 2 or 3 membranous, without blades, and barely extending above ground level ((cataphyls), foliage leaves in 2 opposite rows, usually unifacial and sword-shaped, parallel-veined, usually flat or folded, rarely terete, angled, or winged, sometimes bifacial and channeled to flat (not in either Somaliland or Somalia). Flowering stems aerial or subterranean, simple or branched, terete, angled, or winged. Inflorescences spikes or solitary flowers enclosed by a pair of opposite bracts or umbellate flower clusters enclosed in opposite leafy to dry bracts (spathes), the individual flowers usually pediciellate and subtended by 1 bract. Flowers radially or bilaterally symmetric, bisexual, with a petaloid perianth of usually of 2 equal or unequal whorls, rarely only of 1 whorl; tepals usually large and showy, variously united; stamens 3, opposite the outer tepals, symmetrically arranged or unilateral; filaments filiform, free or variously united; anthers extrorse, usually dehiscing longitudinally; ovaries usually inferior, rarely superior, usually 3-celled with axile placentation and few to many ovules; styles filiform, usually 3-branched, the branches filiform, distally expanded, or forked or the branches thickened or flattened and petaloid. Fruits loculicidal capsules, rarely indehiscent; seeds globose to angular or discoid, sometimes broadly winged, usually dry, with hard endosperm; embryos small. The family Iridaceae includes about 80 genera and 1750 species. It is more or less cosmopolitan but rare in tropical lowlands. It is most speciose in southern Africa. Key to the genera in Somaliland and Somalia. |
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