e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1710142571924_5194766016982544" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - Gal<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1710142571924_2686363435358914" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>tonia
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Hyacinthaceae - Galtonia Decne.

Description:

  • Perennial, large, glabrous, showy bulbous herbs
  • Bulb ovoid to globose
  • Leaves 3-8, basal, lorate to elliptic, somewhat succulent, firm or flaccid
  • Inflorescence usually a solitary, tall, many-flowered raceme; peduncle erect, cylindrical; bracts large, lanceolate, acuminate, membranous
  • Flowers white, creamy yellow tinged green or pale green, bell-shaped, fairly large, pendulous, faintly scented; pedicels spreading, long
  • Tepals fused below forming a tube; lobes narrowly to widely spreading, longer or shorter than tube; persistent, splitting down one side to accommodate the enlarging capsule
  • Stamens 6, in two whorls, arising from perianth tube, included; filaments terete to flat; anthers versatile, introrse
  • Ovary cylindric to ovoid; ovules many; style terete; stigma capitate, 3-lobed, papillose
  • Fruit a cylindric or elongate-conical capsule, 3-angled, membranous, dehiscing loculicidally
  • Seeds half moon-shaped, compressed, narrowly winged or angled, black, shiny
  • x = 11 (1 report)

Nomenclature:

  • Galtonia Decne.
    • Decaisne: 32 (1880)
    • Baker: 450 (1897)
    • Verdoorn: t. 1188 (1955)
    • Hilliard & Burtt: 95 (1988)
    • Pooley: 96 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Southern Africa: Species 4, Mpumalanga, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho, Eastern Cape
    • Found in marshy or somewhat drier ground, grasslands, forest margins, wet cliffs
    • Cultivated in England since 1862

References:

  • BAKER, J.G. 1897. Liliaceae. Flora capensis 6,2
  • DECAISNE, J. 1880. Note sur le Galtonia, nouveau genre de Liliacées de l'Afrique australe. Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe 23
  • HILLIARD, O.M. & BURTT, B.L. 1988. A revision of the genus Galtonia (Liliaceae). Notes from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 45
  • POOLEY, E. 1998. A field guide to wild flowers of KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Region. Natal Flora Publications Trust, Durban
  • VERDOORN, I. 1955. Galtonia viridiflora. Flowering Plants of Africa 30