Description :

• Perennial, dwarf, deciduous, bulbous herbs
• Bulb subglobose, globose to ovoid; outer tunics brown and membranous, inner scales white and fleshy; cataphyll tubular and membranous
• Leaves 2-6, opposing; spreading above; ovate to linear, canaliculate; acute to obtuse; often with conspicuous, sunken veins; glabrous
• Inflorescence a raceme or subcorymb of many flowers, just exserted above ground level between leaves; peduncle elongating in fruit; bracts small, membranous
• Flowers pink, mauve or white; regular; scented; pedicels short
• Tepals fused below forming a short or long narrow tube; lobes spreading
• Stamens 6, in two whorls, arising from perianth tube; filaments free; anthers oblong to linear, yellow or dark, versatile, introrse
• Ovary ovoid; ovules several per locule; style terete; stigma small, apical
• Fruit a rounded, membranous capsule; dehiscing loculicidally
• Seeds subglobose to globose, black

Classification Notes:

• This five-species concept of Polyxena follows Goldblatt & Manning (2000), not the two-species concept of Jessop (1976)
• It includes P. corymbosa , unlike Müller-Doblies & Müller-Doblies (1997) who placed this and another species of Polyxena under the reinstated genus Periboea
• They also described a new species of Periboea and one new species of Polyxena

Nomenclature:

• Polyxena Kunth
  • Kunth: 294 (1843)
  • Baker: 418 (1897) in part, excluding subgenus Astemma Baker
  • Schonland: 443 (1910)
  • Jessop: 426 (1976)
  • Mathew: 5 (1988)
  • Müller-Doblies & Müller-Doblies: 83 (1997)
  • Goldblatt & Manning: 107 (2000.)
• Periboea Kunth
  • Kunth: 292 (1843)
• Hyacinthus L.
  • Linnaeus: 316 (1753) in part

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 5, Free State, Northern, Western and Eastern Cape
  • Polyxena usually occurs in seasonally moist clay or on loamy flats