Bellevalia chrisii
Bellevalia chrisii
Bulb globose-ovoid, 1.2 – 2.6 cm in diameter, with outer tunic coriaceous, brownish, and inner tunic papery, pinkish to light brownish. Leaves 2 – 5 , lanceolate-elliptic, equalling or longer than scape when flowering, shorter than scape when fruiting, 7 – 12 x1.5 – 2.5 cm, glaucous; margins tinged purplish-brown, narrowly cartilaginous, minutely papillose. Scape single, 3 – 5 cm long, green to purplishgreen. Raceme cylindrical ; rather dense, short-cylindrical, to 2 – 5 cm long, elongating to ca 9 cm in fruit; rachis purplish to purplish-green; bracts entire or slightly bi-lobed, minute, pinkish to purplish, triangular to oblong. Pedicels equalling or slightly longer than fl owers, horizontally ascending or erect, 5 – 10 mm long when fl owering, horizontally or slightly recurved by the end of the fl owering time, 8 – 15 mm in fruit and then distinctly horizontal, purplish to purplish-green. Flowers 30 – 100, 5 – 7 mm long, tubular-campanulate; perianth violaceous to crimson-purple in bud, later crimson-purple to pale brownishpurple on tube; tube 3 – 5 mm long; lobes 1.5 – 2.0 mm long, subequal, ovate-lanceolate, violaceous to dirty whitish with purple or green nerves, distinctly shorter than tube. Stamens with fl at, very narrowly triangular, basally connate fi laments attached just below the base of perianth lobes; anthers purplish, 1.0 – 1.3 mm, reaching at least to the middle of the lobes and visible in the mouth of the fl ower. Capsule valves semilunar, cordate to broadly eliptic, triquetrous, ca 9 – 14 mm in diameter, 5 – 11 mm long, thin, elliptic, retuse at apex; dehiscent, persistent. Seeds broadly ellipsoid, wrinkled, ca 2.0 x 1.7 mm, black, shiny.
Flowering in April and May.
