Genus / Crinum

Including Species

Key to Species

Genus Identification Features

Bulbs often large, usually produced at the apex into a longer or shorter false stem. Leaves spirally arranged, sessile, linear, strap-shaped or lanceolate, with smooth or scabrous edges. Peduncle compressed, solid. Bracts 2, usually broad, membranous. Bracteoles many, linear. Umbels with few or many large, subsessile or shortly pedicelled, white or reddish, regular or more or less irregular, flowers. Perianth funnel- or salver-shaped, with a long, straight or curved tube cylindrical or broadened at the apex, and linear, lanceolate or oblong, subequal, erect or spreading segments recurved at the apex and about as long as the tube. Stamens inserted at the throat of the perianth tube. Filaments long, free, filiform, spreading or declinate. Anthers medifixed, linear, often curved. Ovules usually few in each loculus, biseriate, on thick, often projecting, axile placentae. Style long, filiform, more or less declinate. Stigma small, mostly capitate. Capsule subglobose or obovoid, with a membranous or leathery pericarp dehiscing irregularly. Seeds few, large, green, globose or irregularly compressed. Endosperm thick. (FOC-Vol XIV – Pg. 16)

Unique / Extra-ordinary Features