Description:

• Glabrous geophytes, with compact, short, unbranched, usually erect shoots up to 1 m high, surrounded at base by fibrous, often reticulate leaf bases, forming a long sheathing neck, and sometimes with truncate, membranous, tubular squamae; rhizomes covered with fibres; roots many, swollen and spongy or hard, often with tuberous swellings towards tips
• Leaves basal, few to many, distichous, mesophytic, not succulent, filiform to linear and tapering to an acuminate tip, triquetrous to subterete or canaliculate; margin smooth, parallel veins prominent or masked, finely denticulate or ciliate
• Inflorescence a simple, many-flowered, cylindrical, conical or subcorymbose raceme, dense to somewhat lax; scape naked, erect, unbranched, overtopping leaves; bracts solitary, basal, small; pedicels thin
• Perianth stellate, segments free or connate at extreme base only, oblong, persistent; yellow, orange, white or cream-coloured
• Stamens hypogynous; filaments subulate or filiform, apiculate, glabrous; anthers small, subglobose, dorsifixed, versatile
• Ovary subglobose to ovoid, 2 ovules per locule, collateral; style terete; stigma small, apical
• Capsule subglobose to ovoid, sessile or stipitate, topped with persistent style
• Seeds 1 or 2 per locule, narrowly or broadly triangular, acute, black, sometimes with a silvery to yellow outer integument, narrowly or distinctly winged
• x = 7

Nomenclature:

• Bulbinella Kunth
  • Kunth: 569 (1843)
  • Baker: 355 (1896-1897)
  • Perry: 431 (1987)
  • Perry: 1 (1999)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 22, 6 in New Zealand
• Southern Africa: Species 17, Northern, Western and Eastern Cape