Albuca fragrans flower

Albuca fragrans flower
Author: Ivan Lätti
Photographer: Thabo Maphisa

The faintly sweet scented flowers of Albuca fragrans grow in a loose raceme from an unbranched green scape. Each yellow flower nods from a long pedicel enveloped by a dry, membranous, lance-shaped bract.

The outer three perianth lobes or tepals of the flower are larger, up to 2,5 cm long and spreading, while the inner shorter three remain closed around the stamens and style. The tepals are thick-textured; the outer ones have more green colouring than the inner ones, showing in picture as parallel veins on the inner surfaces. Broad green bands along the centre of the outer surfaces and more evident on the outer three tepals, are variable, sometimes faint to about absent. The white tips of the inner tepals are more prominent than the outer ones. The flower produces six fertile stamens. 

Seeds blow out on the wind, dispersing from the capsules that open along the segment seams when ripe (Manning, 2007; Bean and Johns, 2005; iNaturalist; iSpot; JSTOR).

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