Family Doryanthaceae
Description: Giant rosette plants with a short basal stem; roots thick, rather fleshy.
Basal leaves spiral, thickened, dorsiventral, with a terete then convolute brown tip, withering and leaving a broad ragged apex.
Inflorescence a compound raceme, elongate or globose, on long, erect scape with numerous short, thinner textured, sheathing leaves. Flowers actinomorphic or slightly zygomorphic, 3-merous, bisexual, each subtended by a large bract. Tepals 6, in 2 whorls, united shortly at base, spathulate and slightly expanded. Stamens 6; filaments linear-subulate, somewhat enlarged at base, fused to tepals for about half the length, then erect; anthers pseudo-basifixed (peltate but with the apex of the filament enclosed in a tube formed by the connective), dehiscing by longitudinal slits. Ovary inferior, 3-locular, with numerous ovules; style 1, with 3 furrows; stigma 3-angled. Septal nectaries present at base of tepals at top of ovary.
Fruit a loculicidal capsule; seeds many per loculus, brown, kidney-shaped, compressed, with a papery wing.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 1 genus, 2 species, endemic Australia. Australia: Qld & N.S.W.
External links:
Angiosperm Phylogeny Website (Family: Doryanthaceae, Order: Asparagales)
Wikipedia This genus has often been included in the Liliaceae s. lat. Both species are cultivated as ornamentals; interest was expressed at one time in using the leaf fibres commercially.
Text by K. L. Wilson
Taxon concept:
| One genus in NSW: Doryanthes |
|
