Description: Perennial bulbous herbs with fibrous roots.
Leaves several, basal, linear, annual.
Inflorescence a raceme with the uppermost flowers sterile; scape solid, simple. Corona absent. Perianth tubular, urceolate-globose, dark blue, with sharply contracted mouth, 6 short lobes. Stamens included in perianth tube, inserted on perianth tube; filaments terete, glabrous. Ovules 1 or 2 per loculus.
Capsule papery when ripe; seeds 1 or 2 per loculus.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 50 species, Europe, western Asia & northern Africa. Australia: 3 species (naturalized), N.S.W., Vic., S.A., Tas.
M. comosum (L.) Mill. is cultivated in N.S.W., but not recorded as naturalized. It differs in the more open arrangement of the flowers on the scape, colour of the perianth (pale brown with cream lobes in fertile flowers and violet in sterile flowers) and the length of the pedicels (4–25 mm long).
Text by D. C. Godden
Taxon concept:
| One species in NSW: Muscari armeniacum |
|
