Ornithogalum regale

Description

Galtonia is a genus of plants in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Scilloideae. Native to Southern Africa, the genus is named after Sir Francis Galton. According to some authorities it has been subsumed into Ornithogalum as a subgenus, while others prefer to keep it as a separate genus. These are large, vigorous perennial bulbous geophytes, with numerous wide (>5 cm) and large tapering glabrous leaves that ascend and sheathe the stem. The inflorescences are racemose, and conical or cylindrical, but sometimes corymbose. They bear nodding (rarely erect) flowers with fleshy white or greenish yellow tepals that are fused (rarely free) into a campanulate (bell like) tube that extends about half the length of the flower, but are never fragrant. The bracts are membranous and linear-acuminate, while bracteoles are absent. The pedicels are patent The Stamens, which are hidden amongst the perianth lobes where they are inserted at the base have ovate-acuminate (oval, tapering to a point at one end) filaments that are cylindrical and adnate to the perianth tube, merged at its end (occasionally free). The ovary may be black, green or yellow and or ovoid or cylindrical. The style is filiform (thread like) and white, with a stigma that is glandular and somewhat trilobed. The fruit capsule is lanceolate, cylindrical or ovate and acute, and wider in its basal third. The capsule is triangular in section with blunt edges and bears seeds that are large and polygonal or irregularly flattened and biseriate. The seed testa is engraved into a puzzle like pattern. The globose bulbs have soft membranous tunics. Chromosome numbers: 2n=16 (12, 14 in G. saundersiae).