WorldFloraDB - Dianella

Characteristics

Erect or climbing glabrous herbs. Rhizome short to stoloniferous. Roots fibrous. Leaves usually cauline and distichous or basally rosulate, linear, distally dorsiven-tral, in the lower parts sometimes laterally compressed and keeled and often forming a closed sheath at the base. Inflorescence a panicle. Pedicels solitary or few, usually in the axils of bracts, articulated immediately below the flower. Perianth segments free, 3-7-nerved, spreading or recurved, equal or subequal. Filaments filiform or linear, often swollen in the distal half, glabrous, attached to the receptacle or the inner whorl attached to the perianth segments; anthers basifixed, linear to oblong, dehiscing by an apical pore or by a slit which is initiated in an apical pore. Ovary superior, more or less sessile, globose, 3-celled; ovules axile, 4-8 in each locule; style filiform, simple, minutely capitate. Fruit a berry, usually shiny blue; perianth segments adhering, marcescent, not twisting after flowering; base of style persistent. Seeds globose or angled.

More

Rhizomatous perennials, herbaceous or becoming shrub-like. Roots fibrous, fleshy-fibrous or tuberous. Aerial stems elongated or very short, scaly and/or leafy. Leaves ± linear. Inflorescence compound-cymose, partially bracteate; flowers bisexual, pedicellate, in condensed or expanded raceme-like cymules (bostryces). Perianth petaloid; segments 6, in 2 subequal whorls, free, blue, purple or white, marcescent. Stamens 6; filaments glabrous, with a distal swelling (struma); anthers dehiscing extrorsely by pores becoming slits. Ovary superior, globose, usually 3-locular; ovules biseriate, 2–12 per locule, pendulous; placentation axile; style filiform; stigma minute, capitate. Fruit a berry, depressed-spherical to oblong. Seed obliquely obovate, usually transversely biconvex; testa ± smooth or minutely sculptured, brown or black, shiny, rarely dull.

Leaves distichous, sometimes equitant with bases overlapping, evenly spaced, or ± crowded toward the base of a woody stem, ± stem-sheathing or not; lamina folded together lengthwise in the lower part and opened out in upper part (the adaxial surfaces of the folded lower part fused for part or nearly all of their width), or lamina opened out and ± flattened throughout, linear.

Inflorescence a pedunculate panicle of loose cymes, with flowers pedicellate in raceme-like cymules, bracteate; peduncle simple, erect, ± flattened, glabrous, with leaf-like bracts; pedicels articulated immediately below the flower.

Flowers bisexual, actinomorphic; perianth petaloid, segments (tepals) in 2 subequal whorls of 3, free, blue, purple or white, marcescent.

Ovary superior, 3-locular; ovules 2-seriate, 2–many per locule, pendulous; placentation axile; style filiform; stigma minute, capitate.

Stamens in 2 whorls of 3; filaments glabrous, with a distal swelling (struma) adjacent to the base of the anther.

Seeds glossy black or brown, rarely dull, obliquely obovoid; testa smooth, never papillate.

Aerial stems leafy, or lower leaves sometimes reduced to scale-like leaf sheaths.

Perennial herbs (or subshrubs), glabrous, rhizomatous with aerial stems.

Fruit a berry, shiny blue, subspherical to oblong.

Roots thick, fibrous (or tuberous).

Life form	perennial
Growth form
Growth support	-
Foliage retention	evergreen
Sexuality	hermaphrodite
Pollination	-
Spread	-
Mature width (meter)	-
Mature height (meter)	-
Root system	fibrous-root
Rooting depth (meter)	-
Root diameter (meter)	-
Flower color
Blooming months	-
Fruit color
Fruiting months	-
Nitrogen fixer	-
Photosynthetic pathway	-

Environment

Both in forest and in more open localities.

Light	-
Soil humidity	-
Soil texture	-
Soil acidity	-
Soil nutriment	-
Hardiness (USDA)

Usage

Uses	-
Edible	-
Therapeutic use	-
Human toxicity	-
Animal toxicity	-

Cultivation

Mode	-
Germination duration (days)	30 - 90
Germination temperacture (C°)	18 - 21
Germination luminosity	-
Germination treatment	-
Minimum temperature (C°)	-
Optimum temperature (C°)	-
Size	-
Vigor	-
Productivity	-