Description:

• Perennial, deciduous, usually solitary, bulbous herbs
• Bulb globose, ovoid, obovoid or oblong, usually below ground; scales membranous to fleshy, never fibrous; roots fleshy, fusiform or contractile
• Leaves 1-many, usually contemporary with flowers; spreading to erect or flat on ground; linear to ovate-acuminate or spatulate; usually glabrous, but sometimes pitted, viscid or hairy; margin entire; often with purplish or dark green spots or stripes
• Inflorescence 1-several, axillary raceme(s) of few to many flowers, erect or usually spreading horizontally; bracts small, filiform, usually each with a small lateral bracteole
• Flowers small, pink, pink-purple or white, often with greenish keels; pedicels spreading or drooping, short or long, often decurrent
• Tepals fused at base forming a wide, shallow cup; oblong to ovate, with lobes spreading or recurved; persistent
• Stamens 6, arising from perianth base; filaments free, erect, terete; anthers versatile, introrse
• Ovary stipitate, conical or obconical, sometimes with a crenate base, 3- or 6-lobed; ovules 2 in each locule, basal; style terete; stigma apical
• Fruit an ovoid to subglobose capsule, 3-angled; dehiscing loculicidally
• Seeds obovoid, reddish or yellowish brown, brown or black, shiny
• x = 10 (aneuploids, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Ledebouria Roth
  • Roth: 194 (1821)
  • Jessop: 233 (1970)
  • Baker: 478 (1897) as Scilla L., subgenus Ledebouria
  • Sölch et al.: 66 (1970)
  • Stedje: 10 (1996)
  • Stedje: 1 (1998)
  • Venter & Edwards: 15 (1998a)
  • Venter & Edwards: 179 (1998b)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 46, across Africa to southern tip of India
• Southern Africa: Species 38, in all countries and provinces

Additional Notes:

• Used medicinally and as traditional charms
• Occasionally used in the horticultural trade