Alrawia

Alrawia is a genus of bulbous flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Scilloideae (also treated as the family Hyacinthaceae).[2] It is native to north-eastern Iraq and Iran.[1]

Alrawia
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Monocots
Order: Asparagales
Family: Asparagaceae
Subfamily: Scilloideae
Genus: Alrawia
(Wendelbo) Perss. & Wendelbo[1]

Description

Species of Alrawia grow from bulbs covered with a tunic that is grayish outside and often violet inside. They produce a single flowering stem (scape); the inflorescence consists of a raceme. Individual flowers are borne on a short stalk (pedicel) which is turned downwards when the flowers first appear.[3] The tepals are violet with whitish lobe tips and are joined at the base for up to half their length.[4] The pedicels lengthen and turn upwards after flowers are fertilized; the black seeds are globular or ovate.[3]

Species

As of March 2013, the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families recognized two species:[5]

  • Alrawia bellii (Baker) Perss. & Wendelbo
Flowers up to 1 cm (0.4 in) long; tube one quarter the length of the whole flower; western Iran.[4]
  • Alrawia nutans (Wendelbo) Perss. & Wendelbo
Flowers slightly longer, up to 1.3 cm (0.5 in) long; tube one half the length of the whole flower; north-east Iraq.[4]

Cultivation

Brian Mathew describes the species as "enthusiasts' plants", being "not very showy". They are said to be easy to cultivate in a bulb frame or alpine house but not to increase readily. As they occur naturally in regions with hot dry summers, the bulbs need to be dried out when dormant.[4]

gollark: I might have to retrieve the infographic.
gollark: Consume "bees".
gollark: But half of that system would probably be useless or a disadvantage, so it would never evolve.
gollark: You could entirely fix cancer through better DNA error correction, for instance, and the technology for that has been developed as part of communication/storage systems we have now (although admittedly implementing it in biology would probably be very very hard).
gollark: On the other hand, through actually having a planning process and not just blindly seeking local minima, a human can make big changes to designs even if the middle ones wouldn't be very good, which evolution can't.

References
  1. "Alrawia", World Checklist of Selected Plant Families, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, retrieved 2013-03-27
  2. Stevens, P.F., "Asparagales: Scilloideae", Angiosperm Phylogeny Website, retrieved 2013-03-27
  3. "Alrawia (Wendelbo) Perss. & Wendelbo", eMonocot, archived from the original on 2013-04-19, retrieved 2013-03-27
  4. Mathew, Brian (1987), The Smaller Bulbs, London: B.T. Batsford, ISBN 978-0-7134-4922-8, pp. 4–5
  5. Search for "Alrawia", World Checklist of Selected Plant Families, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, retrieved 2013-03-27
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