ORNITHOGALUM DICTAEUM

Family and Genus:- See- HYACINTHACEAE

Common Names:- None

Homotypic Synonyms:- None

Meaning:- Ornithogalum (Gr) Bird-milk, a name used by the Greek physician and

botanist Dioscorides for plants yielding bird-lime.

Dictaeum (L) From the Dikti mountains, Crete.

General description:- Bulbous plant.

Bulb:-

1) Ovoid, c. 1.3 times as long as wide, usually without offsets.

Scape:-

1) 3-10 cm, erect, slender, aerial part very short.

Leaves:-

1) 3-6, persistent at anthesis, usually flaccid, much exceeding the inflorescence;

narrowly linear (1-1.5 mm wide), without a white stripe, but with a narrow groove

on the upper surface, glabrous.

Flowers:-

1) 4-8, on long pedicels, diverging at an angle of c. 45°.

2) Perianth segments, 12-16 mm, white above, green stripe at the back, narrow, not

reaching the base.

3) Bract, c. 0.6 times as long as the pedicel.

4) Anthers, without a reddish-brown spot at the attachment of the fllament.

Fruit:-

1) Capsule, obovoid with rounded lobes.

Key features:-

1) Leaves, persistent at anthesis.

2) Anthers, without a reddish-brown spot at the attachment of the fllament.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Open dry shrubby vegetation on limestone slopes, fallow terraces and

dolines, damp, shady schistose cliff ledges. 300-1200 m.

Distribution:- Endemic Crete (Dikti mountains).

Flowering time:- Apr-May.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton