Aloes and Lilies of Ethiopia and Eritrea

ASPARAGACEAE
DRACAENA SANSEVIERIA 289
The family consists of erect or scandent herbs, subshrubs
or shrubs. The rhizomes are sympodial and the roots often
swollen and fusiform. The leaves are normally reduced
and scale­like, the assimilating function taken over by
modified green branches (cladodes). In some genera, the
branches are transformed into leaf­like cladodes (phylloclades).
The flowers are unisexual or bisexual, solitary
assembled in racemes or umbel-like inflorescences.
The perianth with 6 tepals in two series, are similar in
shape, free or fused at the base, white, yellow or green.
The 6 stamens are found both in unisexual and bisexual
flowers,but are not functional in the female unisexual
flowers. The ovary is superior, three-locular with 2-12
ovules in each locule, in axile placentation. The styles are
short with capitate or lobed stigma. The fruits are globose
with 1–2(–3) black seeds.
The family includes only one genus, Asparagus,
with a controversial number of species (170–300),
distributed throughout Africa and most of Europe, Asia,
and Australia. The genus is divided in two subgenera:
subgenus Asparagus and subgenus Myrsiphyllum.
ASPARAGUS L.
The genus includes erect or scandent branching shrubs
or subshrubs. Spines are commonly present, rarely
absent, when present these are formed from the reduced
leaves. The cladodes are solitary or fascicled, subulate,
more or less linear and the phylloclades are flattened.
The phylloclades are bilateral and anatomically rather
leaf­like, while the cladodes are usually needle­like and
radial, both types are supplied with several or one single
vascular bundle. Three different kinds of spines are
observed in Asparagus: indurated modified leaf stipules,
as seen in all of the Ethiopian species, e.g. Asparagus
africanus; the indurated pungent cladodes as shown in