SPECIES DESCRIPTION
ORNITHOGALUM SIBTHORPII
Family and Genus:- See- HYACINTHACEAE
Common Names:- None
Homotypic Synonyms:- Ornithogalum nanum.
Meaning:- Ornithogalum (Gr) Bird-milk, a name used by the Greek physician and
botanist Dioscorides for plants yielding bird-lime.
Sibthorpii (L) For professor Humphrey Sibthorp (1713-97, of Oxford,
and his son John (1758-97), English botanist.
General description:- Bulbous plant 5-15cm. tall
Leaves:-
1) (3-)5-9(-11), (1-)1·5-4·5(-7) mm wide, glaucous, glabrous, longer than the
inflorescence.
Flowers:-
1) Inflorescence, (2)4-7(15). corymbiform, sessile, on surface of the soil.
2) Pedicels, at anthesis, (but while still green) pulvinus, at the base, flaccid and
sulcate, at the apex, deflexed in fruit.
3) Bracts, longer or shorter than the pedicels.
4) Perianth-segments, 12·5-26 mm, ovate-elliptical, white, with a pale green stripe
on the back.
5) Anthers, yellow or slightly greenish.
6) Ovary, 4-6(-7·5) mm, ovoid, with 6 prominent angles, depressed at the apex.
7) Style, (2·5-)4-5·5 mm.
Fruit:-
1) Capsule, 9-15 mm, obovoid to cylindrical, the six angles keeled, the septal
fissures reaching the base.
Key features:-
1) Bulb, with free scales, without bulbils, or with a few offsets which grow out in
their first year.
2) Pedicels, after anthesis (but while still green) flaccid and sulcate at the apex.
3) Ovary, ovoid, less than 1 1/3 times as long as wide, equalling or slightly longer
than the style.
Habitat:- Damp meadows, dolines, olive groves, cultivated and fallow fields. 0-1200
m.
Distribution:- Balkan peninsula and Aegean region. Limited distribution on Crete.
Rare.
Flowering time:- Apr to early June.
Photos by:- Steve Lenton
