Poison Squill

nyasae: of Nyassaland, colonial name for Malawi.

Slender perennial herb 20-30 cm tall, growing from a bulb. Leaves long and linear, usually absent at flowering time. Flowers in a terminal raceme, whitish with a purple midline on the outside of the tepals.

Bulbous, perennial herbs. Leaves and inflorescences arising from separate buds. Leaves 1-many, linear to lorate. Flowers in cylindric or subcapitate racemes, rarely pendulous. Bracts long-acuminate, at least the lower spurred. Flowers white, mauve, brown or green with a dark midrib. Perianth of 6 free or fused, patent or erecto-patent, segments. Stamens 6, with filaments erect and ± connivent or spreading. Ovary 3-locular; ovules many. Capsule spherical to ovoid, loculicidal. Seeds flat, winged, black, shiny, papillose.