Biorepository Data Portal

Herbs, perennial, cespitose, green to ashy olive when dry, to 4.5 dm, not glaucous; rhizomes scarcely discernable. Stems simple, obviously winged, 1-2.5 mm wide, glabrous, margins entire to denticulate apically, similar in color and texture to stem body. Leaf blades glabrous, bases not persistent in fibrous tufts. Inflorescences borne singly; spathes usually green, glabrous, keels entire to denticulate; outer 14-55(-65) mm, 13-16 mm longer than inner, basally connate 2.6-7 mm, tapering evenly towards apex; inner with keel evenly curved to straight, hyaline margins 0.1-0.5 mm wide, apex acuminate to acute, ending 0.5-2.1 mm proximal to green apex. Flowers: tepals light to deep bluish violet or occasionally purple, bases yellow; outer tepals 8-20 mm, apex rounded, truncate, or emarginate, aristate; filaments connate ± entirely, stipitate-glandular basally; ovary similar in color to foliage. Capsules beige to light or dark brown, occasionally with purple blotches on apex, ± globose to pyriform, 3-6 mm; pedicel erect to ascending. Seeds globose to obconic, lacking obvious depression, 0.8-1.8 mm, usually granular.

Plant: perennial herb; erect, to 45 cm tall; ROOTS fine to somewhat thickened; STEMS 1-2.5(-4) mm wide, simple (occasionally branched), the margins entire or minutely dentate, the surface glabrous Leaves: folded lengthwise in iris-like fashion but somewhat flexuous, mostly basal and distichous, the margins slightly hyaline basally; (0.5-)1-3(-4.5) mm wide INFLORESCENCE: an umbel with 2 spathe bracts, the lower (outer) bract enclosing the other (inner); SPATHE BRACTS with the dorsal keels entire or minutely dentate, unequal in length; outer bract 14-55 mm long, tapering evenly to the apex, the margins connate basally (2-)3-7 mm; inner bract 12-33 mm long, the hyaline margin narrow, ending at or just below the apex, the base curved or tapering evenly as it emerges from the outer bract Flowers: light to deep blue-violet or purple with yellow bases; pedicels erect to ascending, glabrous or glandular-pubescent, at anthesis subequal to longer than the inner bract; tepals (6-)8-20 mm long, the outer with obtuse, truncate, or emarginate and apiculate apices; anthers 0.7-2(-2.5) mm long; filaments completely united; ovary glandular pubescent Fruit: a capsule 3-6 mm long, obovoid to nearly spherical, straw-colored or beige; SEEDS 0.8-1.8 mm long, oblong to nearly spherical or angular, the surface generally granular REFERENCES: Cholewa, Anita F. and Douglass M. Henderson. 1994. Iridaceae J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. Volume 27(2), 215.