''Daubenya'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

bulb In botany, a bulb is a short underground stem with fleshy leaves or leaf basesBell, A.D. 1997. ''Plant form: an illustrated guide to flowering plant morphology''. Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K. that function as food storage organs duri ...

ous flowering plants in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Asparagaceae Asparagaceae (), known as the asparagus family, is a family of flowering plants, placed in the order Asparagales of the monocots. The family name is based on the edible garden asparagus, '' Asparagus officinalis''. This family includes both ...

, subfamily

Scilloideae Scilloideae (named after the genus ''Scilla'', "squill") is a subfamily of bulbous plants within the family ''Asparagaceae''. Scilloideae is sometimes treated as a separate family Hyacinthaceae, named after the genus ''Hyacinth (plant), Hyacinthus ...

(also treated as the family Hyacinthaceae).Stevens, P.F. (2001 onwards),
Asparagales: Scilloideae
, ''Angiosperm Phylogeny Website'', retrieved 2013-03-28 It is native to the

Cape Province The Province of the Cape of Good Hope (), commonly referred to as the Cape Province () and colloquially as The Cape (), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequently the Republic of South Africa. It encompassed the old Cape Co ...

of South Africa. At first believed to consist of a single species, ''Daubenya aurea'', the genus was expanded in 2000 to include the genera '' Androsiphon'' and '' Amphisiphon'' and various species that had previously been classified as ''

Polyxena In Greek mythology, Polyxena (; ) was the youngest daughter of King Priam of Troy and his queen, Hecuba. She does not appear in Homer, but in several other classical authors, though the details of her story vary considerably. After the fall of ...

'', '' Massonia'', or '' Neobakeria''. ''"The poor congruence between morphological and other characters within Hyacinthaceae has also made generic circumscriptions very difficult. One of the consequences of this has been the recognition of a large number of genera that are poorly defined morphologically."''- (Speta 1998)

Description

Species of ''Daubenya'' grow from bulbs covered with a brownish tunic. Each bulb produces only two leaves, which appear with the flowers and normally spread out along the ground on either side. The

inflorescence In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branches. An inflorescence is categorized on the basis of the arrangement of flowers on a mai ...

is a

raceme A raceme () or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate growth, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are ...

, usually very condensed and close to the ground. Individual flowers are white, pink, yellow or red, sometimes with the

tepals A tepal is one of the outer parts of a flower (collectively the perianth). The term is used when these parts cannot easily be classified as either sepals or petals. This may be because the parts of the perianth are undifferentiated (i.e. of ve ...

furthest from the flowering stem (i.e. on the outside of the inflorescence) larger than the others. The tepals are fused at the base forming a distinct tube. The stamens arise from the mouth of this tube, and are often very prominent. The more or less globe-shaped black seeds are produced inside a papery capsule. Species are variously pollinated by bees, butterflies, moths, the monkey beetle '' Lepisia glenlyonensis'' and sunbirds. The water-retaining nature of doleritic clays ensures their remaining moist for longer than clays formed from shales of the Karoo series. Exceptionally, ''D. namaquensis''is, is found in deep red sands and ''D. zeyheri'' in calcareous coastal sands. There is no formal conservation policy for ''Daubenya'' species and their future prospects remain bleak. Cultivated bulbs of ''D. aurea'' are on offer at commercial nurseries, though all the species are worthy of cultivation for their bright and often fragrant flowers.

Species

, the

World Checklist of Selected Plant Families The World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (usually abbreviated to WCSP) was an "international collaborative programme that provides the latest peer reviewed and published opinions on the accepted scientific names and synonyms of selected p ...

recognized eight

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

:Search for "Daubenya", All but ''D. aurea'' were transferred to the genus ''Daubenya'' during revisions of the South African members of the Scilloideae in early 2000s; they were previously placed in ''Androsiphon'', ''Amphisiphon'', ''Polyxena'', ''Massonia'', or ''Neobakeria''.

References

External links

* * * – photographs of six species * – photographs of seven species {{Taxonbar, from=Q5800150 Asparagaceae genera