AFRICAN LILY
Agapanthus praecox
Onion & Garlic Family [Alliaceae] 
|
|
Onion & Garlic Family [Alliaceae]
|
|
status
flower
inner
morph
petals
tepalstype
type
type
stem
toxicity
_2017_07_08_Waterloo_3ParkGardens_circ_103p5.jpg)
| 8th July 2017, park garden, Waterloo, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| Found in the wild mostly on sandy soils near the sea in the Scilly Isles; rarely elsewhere such as Isle of Man, Southern England and the Channel Islands. Here planted on purpose in a park (still near the sea though). |
_2017_07_08_Waterloo_3ParkGardens_circ_085p1.jpg)
| 8th July 2017, park garden, Waterloo, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
_2017_07_08_Waterloo_3ParkGardens_circ_102p9.jpg)
| 8th July 2017, park garden, Waterloo, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| A single straight, rigid and round stem bears the globed inflorescence. |
_2017_07_08_Waterloo_3ParkGardens_circ_299p7.jpg)
| 8th July 2017, park garden, Waterloo, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| Leaves all basal and very long linear, quite wide in the middle. |
_2017_07_08_Waterloo_3ParkGardens_circ_299p87.jpg)
| 8th July 2017, park garden, Waterloo, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| Unopened flowers, the 6 tepals are blue and closed together. |
_2017_07_08_Waterloo_3ParkGardens_circ_098p5.jpg)
| 8th July 2017, park garden, Waterloo, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| Flowers usually blue; only rarely are they white. |
| 9th Aug 2012, Grange-over-Sands prom, Cumbria. | Photo: © RWD |
| There's always one who must be different: in lampshade mode... |
_2017_07_08_Waterloo_3ParkGardens_circ_093p2.jpg)
| 8th July 2017, park garden, Waterloo, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| The 6 tepals are joined for the first 1/3rd of an opened flower, which is slightly zygomorphic with both the tepals on the top of the flower being curved up slightly more than those at the bottom. The 6 filaments also usually have an upward curl. Tepals azure with a darker-blue mid-stripe. (Occasionally they may be white). Flowers 26mm - 50mm long. |
| 9th Aug 2012, Grange-over-Sands prom, Cumbria. | Photo: © RWD |
| When the anthers are yet to open, they are dark-blue. |
_2017_07_08_Waterloo_3ParkGardens_circ_097p4.jpg)
| 8th July 2017, park garden, Waterloo, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| But when the anthers open they display brown pollen grains. |
_2017_07_08_Waterloo_3ParkGardens_circ_093p3.jpg)
| 8th July 2017, park garden, Waterloo, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| Anthers yellow, T-barred onto the filaments. |
_2017_07_08_Waterloo_3ParkGardens_circ_301p65.jpg)
| 8th July 2017, park garden, Waterloo, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| An unopened flower umbel, enclosed by two paler-green sheaths before opening. Stems almost featurelessly smooth. |
| 9th Aug 2012, Grange-over-Sands prom, Cumbria. | Photo: © RWD |
| Flower buds expanding and bursting out of the sheath. |
_2017_07_08_Waterloo_3ParkGardens_circ_101p79.jpg)
| 8th July 2017, park garden, Waterloo, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| Last years spent umbel of flowers; only the flower stalks remain, now woody and straw coloured, as is the main stem. |
_2017_07_08_Waterloo_3ParkGardens_circ_302p4.jpg)
| 8th July 2017, park garden, Waterloo, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| The linear leaves between 20-70cm long and 1.5 to 5.5cm wide. Some cultivars may have smaller and much narrower and yellower leaves. |
[fruit]_2017_09_14_StHelens_canal_Earlstown_Warrington_048p2.jpg)
| 14th Sept 2017, a garden, St Helens, Lancs | Photo: © RWD |
| A couple of months later and it is turning to seed pods, which are all reflexed away from the summit. One or two pods have not yet fully de-clothed themselves of the petals they were once surrounded by - one in particular is half-way towards the left-hand corner. Shrivelling remains of the flowers turning to seed pods on the plant in lower left corner. |
[fruit]_2017_09_14_StHelens_canal_Earlstown_Warrington_048p02.jpg)
| 14th Sept 2017, a garden, St Helens, Lancs | Photo: © RWD |
| The seed pods are longer than wide, three-lobed (although one seems to have 4 lobes) and with their very long, white, whisker-thin styles still attached at the end. Some petioles (flower stalks) have already lost their fruit which are now terminated by a slightly wider pedestal. |
|
Some similarities to : Star-of-Persia (Allium christophii) but that has globed purple flowers with much narrower tepals, and proportionally shorter less wide leaves. Uniquely identifiable characteristics Distinguishing Feature : This neophyte hardly occurs anywhere else but on sandy soil near the sea on Scilly; hardly anywhere else except just a few scattered random occurrences on the Isle of Man, Southern England and the Channel Islands and it is the sub-species ssp. oriantalis which does. Your Author does not know whether the planted ones shown above are the real MacKay, ssp. orientalis or another that looks like it.
|
 Agapanthus
|
praecox
|
⇐ Global Aspect ⇒ |
Alliaceae
|
 Agapanthus (African Lily) |
|
Onion & Garlic Family [Alliaceae]
|
BSBI maps