− | Schizostylis (Greek, to cut, and style, alluding to the filiform segments of the style). Iridaceae. Greenhouse or half-hardy plants: sts. fascicled on the rhizome, bulbless or slightly bulbous-thickened at the base: lvs. linear or narrow-ensiform: spathes remote along the simple peduncle, somewhat distichous, greenish, lanceolate, complicate: fl. sessile in the spathe; bracts narrower than the spathe, green or somewhat scarious, 2-keeled; perianth showy, red, the tube slender, the lobes equal, oblong or ovate; ovary 3-celled: caps, obovoid or oblong, the top truncate, 3-grooved, membranaceous.—Two species, S. Afr. | + | Hesperantha (Greek, evening flower). Iridaceae. Bulbs, sometimes grown indoors. |
| + | These plants belong to the Ixia tribe and are much inferior to ixias for general cult., but have fragrant fls., opening at evening; the style is short wit h long subulate branches, and the spathe-valves are green rather than brown. The genus is still more closely allied to Geissorhiza, and differs in having shorter style and longer style-branches and spathe-valves always green instead of sometimes brownish above. The conns are Yiva. thick or less: lvs. 2-5, narrow and distichous: fls. 2-10 in a lax, distichous spike; perianth rotate and a cylindrical tube; inner segms. white; outer ones red outside; stamens inserted on the throat.—Species about 40, in Trop. Afr. and the Cape, mostly the latter. For cult, see Ixia and Bulbs. |
| + | syn. Schizostylis (Greek, to cut, and style, alluding to the filiform segments of the style). Iridaceae. Greenhouse or half-hardy plants: sts. fascicled on the rhizome, bulbless or slightly bulbous-thickened at the base: lvs. linear or narrow-ensiform: spathes remote along the simple peduncle, somewhat distichous, greenish, lanceolate, complicate: fl. sessile in the spathe; bracts narrower than the spathe, green or somewhat scarious, 2-keeled; perianth showy, red, the tube slender, the lobes equal, oblong or ovate; ovary 3-celled: caps, obovoid or oblong, the top truncate, 3-grooved, membranaceous.—Two species, S. Afr. |