Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Herbs, perennial, scapose, from bulbs. Bulbs black or brown, tunicate, ovoid or globose, sometimes with long neck.

Stems:

Roots: Fibrous root system.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Spirally arranged. Blades linear, rarely exceeding 1 cm wide, smooth. Base sessile. Surfaces glabrous. Veins parallel. Sheathing. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in scape hollow. inflorescence 1-flowered (rarely 2-flowered in z. drummondii), spathaceous, otherwise ebracteate; spathe proximally tubular. Flowers bisexual (perfect), erect to declinate, actinomorphic; perianth subrotate to funnelform to salverform, connate basally into tube, 2–16 cm, pedicel sometimes absent, hollow. Perianth of 6 tepals subequal, in 2 series. Stamens 6, of 2 different lengths, appearing equal or subequal (anthers in 2 overlapping sets of 3) to unequal (anthers of the sets not overlapping in Z. longifolia); filaments inserted just above perianth tube, erect, diverging except when shorter than tube, long-filiform to short-subulate, those inserted on distal tepals usually 1+ mm longer than those inserted on proximal ones; anthers submedially dorsifixed, usually parallel with floral axis, linear-oblong. Ovary inferior; style filiform; stigma capitate or 3-fid with lobes linear.

Fruit: Capsules; thin-walled; 3-locular; subglobose or ± oblate. Seeds numerous; black; flat; D- or wedge-shaped; lustrous.

Ploidy: x = 6

Habitat:

Elevation Range: