Aloes and Lilies of Ethiopia and Eritrea

Distribution and
classification
Economic
importance
IRIDACEAE
ALOE 223
The family includes perennial evergreen or seasonal
herbs with rhizomes, bulbs or corms. The leaves are
basal and also along the stem, often distichous and with
one leaf clasping the base of the next; the blades are
parallel-veined, plane or plicate. The flowering stems
are aerial or subterranean, simple or branched, terete,
angled or winged. The inflorescence is either composed
of umbellate clusters (rhipidia) enclosed in opposite leafy
to dry bracts (spathes) with flowers usually pedicellate
(to more or less sessile), each subtended by one bract;
or a spike of sessile flowers, each subtended by two
opposed bracts; or occasionally the flowers are solitary.
The flowers are regular or zygomorphic with a petaloid
perianth of two equal or unequal whorls (rarely one
whorl absent). The tepals are usually large and showy,
free almost to the base or united in a tube. The 3 stamens
are inserted at the base of the outer tepals, or in the tube
with anthers that dehisce longitudinally. The ovary is
inferior, 3­locular with few to many ovules; the style is
filiform and usually 3-branched or 3-lobed, sometimes
simple. The fruit is usually a capsule with a loculicidal
dehiscence, rarely indehiscent. The seeds are brownish,
globose to angular or discoid, sometimes broadly winged,
usually dry, rarely fleshy.
The family is easily distinguished from other lilioid
families by the presence of only three stamens and an
inferior ovary.
The family includes about 70 genera and 1750 species
found more or less world­wide. The highest concentration
of species is found in southern Africa. The family is
represented by 8 indigenous genera and 28 species in
Ethiopia.
Members of Iridaceae are of considerable economic
importance in horticulture and the cut-flower industry,
especially Iris, Gladiolus and Freesia. Several other
genera (Dietes, Crocus, Watsonia) are cultivated in