keys to the vascular plants of east texas - Botanical Research ...

UVULARIA/COLCHICACEAE
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blurred, further confusing the situation (Huxley et al. 1992; Kubitzki 1998a). Some authorities
(e.g., Huxley et al. 1992; Kartesz 1999) treat C. �orchioides as a synonym of C. �generalis. I
Canna indica L., (of India), INDIAN-SHOT, PLATANILLO. Plant to 1 or even 2 m tall, glabrous but not
glaucous; leaves to 60 cm long and 30 cm wide, apically short acuminate to acute; flowers red to
yellow-orange, but not pure yellow (except in some hybrid cultivars), 4.5–7.5 cm long; corolla tube
5–20 mm long; capsules 1.5–3 cm long; seeds black, globose or nearly so, 4-8 mm in diam. Weedy
areas, waste places; Liberty Co. (Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge—Brown et al. 2002a) on se
margin of East TX; also mapped for sw TX by Kress and Prince (2000) and cited by Hatch et al.
(1990) for the Gulf Prairies and Marshes; FL, LA, SC, and TX. Spring–summer. [C. coccinea Mill.,
C. edulis Ker Gawl.] Probably native of the New World tropics (despite the epithet and common
name), but now widespread in tropical and subtropical areas worldwide (Kress & Prince 2000).
According to Bailey (1924), this is “One of the old-fashioned garden cannas, grown mostly for its
foliage effects.” The black, round, shiny seeds of C. indica L., INDIA-SHOT, are very hard and durable
and resemble bullets—hence the derivation of the common name (Durant 1976). They
have been used as beads (e.g. for rosaries), and in South America the natives “put the seeds in
nutshells, strung them like a necklace and used them as rattles” (Durant 1976). I m/279
COLCHICACEAE DC.
AUTUMN CROCUS FAMILY
AA small family of 19 genera and ca. 225 species of perennial herbs with corms or rhizomes,
distributed in temperate to tropical regions mostly of the Old World, particularly the s hemisphere.
A single genus, Uvularia, is native to North America (Nordenstam 1998). Many are cultivated
as ornamentals. The genera have been variously treated in terms of family affiliation.
Some authorities have put them in a very broad and clearly polyphyletic (but practical)
Liliaceae (e.g., Correll & Johnston 1970; Cronquist 1988), while others have segregated some as
the Uvulariaceae (e.g., Dahlgren et al. 1985; Takhtajan 1997). However, based on phylogenetic
analyses, we are following Nordenstam (1998), Rudall et al. (2000b), and Vinnersten and
Bremer (2001) in treating Uvularia in the Colchicaceae (order Liliales). For a detailed discussion
of the groups formerly treated as Liliaceae in the broad sense, see the family synopsis of the
Liliaceae (here treated in a restricted sense) on page 726. � Some members of the Colchicaceae
(e.g., Colchicum and Gloriosa species) produce colchicine-type alkaloids which are very poisonous
and cause severe damage to livestock in certain regions (e.g., Africa); these alkaloids are
also used medicinally (Nordenstam 1998; Burrows & Tyrl 2001). Family name from Colchicum,
AUTUMN CROCUS, NAKED LADIES, a karyologically complicated genus (high frequency of polyploidy)
of ca. 90 species found in Europe, Asia, and Africa (Nordenstam 1998). Colchicum is also
the source of the medicine colchicum (formerly used as a pain-killer and in treating gout) and
of the toxic alkaloid colchicine, used in plant research to cause a doubling of chromosomes by
disorganizing the spindle mechanism at mitosis (Mabberley 1997). (Name from the northeast
Black Sea shores of Georgia, once called Colchis, the autumn crocus supposedly having originated
there) (subclass Liliidae—Cronquist; order Liliales—APG II)
FAMILY RECOGNITION IN THE FIELD: perennial herbs with erect-arching, unbranched or 1branched
leafy stems, sessile or perfoliate leaves, and solitary, apparently axillary, stalked and
drooping flowers with free, pale yellow perianth parts.
REFERENCES: Shinwari et al. 1994; Nordenstam 1998; Rudall et al. 2000b.
UVULARIA L. BELLWORT, MERRY-BELLS
Glabrous perennial herbs from rhizomes; stems erect, arching, unbranched or typically oncebranched;
leaves alternate, sessile or perfoliate, acute, entire, glaucous; flower solitary, appearing
axillary, nodding on a stalk; perianth narrowly bell-shaped; sepals and petals 3 each, similar,