e-Key v3 - Rhadamanthus
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Hyacinthaceae - Rhadamanthus Salisb.

Description :

  • Perennial, deciduous, small to medium, bulbous herbs
  • Bulb globose to ovoid; scales loose, imbricate, occasionally spatulate, occasionally produced apically into thin, transversely costate sheaths; roots several, fibrous
  • Leaves 1-many; developing after flowering; erect or spreading; filiform to linear or ovate-oblong; glabrous or pubescent
  • Inflorescence a few- to many-flowered raceme, occasionally secund; peduncle erect, cylindrical, smooth or with scabrid ribs; bracts small, spurred
  • Flowers white, pink, green or brown, with darker keels; small; usually nodding; campanulate; pedicels short to long, recurved, but erect in fruit
  • Tepals subequal, usually fused below, rarely free, spreading or incurved
  • Stamens 6, enclosed; filaments arising from base of tepals; anthers sometimes connivent, occasionally caudate, glabrous or barbellate, usually dehiscing by an apical pore or occasionally by an incomplete or complete longitudinal slit
  • Ovary globose to ovoid, glabrous or papillate-puberulous; ovules several per locule; style short and thick, cylindrical or absent; stigma small, apical
  • Fruit a globose to ovoid capsule, 3-angled; dehiscing loculicidally
  • Seeds few to many, round, flat, black, shiny, finely reticulate-rugose
  • x = 10

Classification Notes:

  • Closely related to Urginea , usually differing in the mode of anther dehiscence

Nomenclature:

  • Rhadamanthus Salisb.
    • Salisbury: 37 (1866)
    • Baker: 444 (1897)
    • Nordenstam:155 (1970)
    • Sölch et al.: 64 (1970)
    • Obermeyer: 137 (1980)
    • Bond & Goldblatt: 56 (1984)
    • Snijman, Manning & Goldblatt: 111 (1999)
    • Goldblatt & Manning: 97 (2000) under Drimia

Distribution & Notes:

  • Southern Africa : Species 12, arid western regions or the montane regions of the south: Namibia, Free State, Northern, Western and Eastern Cape

References:

  • BAKER, J.G. 1897. Liliaceae . Flora capensis 6,2
  • BOND, P. & GOLDBLATT, P. 1984. Plants of the Cape Flora. A descriptive catalogue. Journal of South African Botany , supplementary vol. 13
  • GOLDBLATT, P. & MANNING, J.C. 2000. Cape plants. A conspectus of the Cape flora of South Africa. Strelitzia 9
  • NORDENSTAM, B. 1970. Studies in South African Liliaceae III. The genus Rhadamanthus . Botaniska Notiser 123
  • OBERMEYER, A.A. 1980. A new subgenus Rhadamanthopsis and two species of Rhadamanthus . Bothalia 13
  • SALISBURY, R.A. 1866. The genera of plants . John van Voorst, London
  • SNIJMAN, D., MANNING, J.C. & GOLDBLATT, P. 1999. A new Rhadamanthus ( Hyacinthaceae ) species from the north western Cape, South Africa. Novon 9
  • SÖLCH, A., ROESSLER, H. & MERXMÜLLER, H. 1970. Liliaceae . Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 147

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