Description
Stem
Usually flowers and fruits as a shrubby plant about 1 m tall.
Leaves
Leaf blades linear, about 80-100 x 1-2 cm. Margin smooth except for 1 or 2 teeth below the apex. Bases sheathing, brown and scarious. Venation longitudinal and parallel.
Flowers
Inflorescence about as long as the leaves or shorter than the leaves. Male flowers: Flowers sessile, pleasantly perfumed, about 3 mm diam., arranged in whorls on the main branches of the inflorescence. Stamens six, attached to the tepals. Anthers yellow. Female flowers: Staminodes dimorphic, the short ones alternating with the inner tepals and the longer ones opposite the inner tepals. Ovary green, stigma 3-lobed.
Fruit
Infructescence with many long spiny bracts, each bract about 1-4 cm long. Fruits globular, about 5 x 4 mm, 3-lobed in transverse section. Style persistent at the apex of each fruit. Seeds up to three per fruit, each seed about 4 mm long. Testa very thin. Endosperm hard and starchy. Embryo slightly curved, about 1.8 mm long.
Seedlings
Seeds retained on threads about 4-8 mm long. Leaves radical, venation parallel and margin smooth. First leaf blade linear, about 17-40 x 1-1.5 mm, second leaf blade about 40-60 mm long. At the tenth leaf stage: leaf blade linear, flat, many times longer than wide, about 150-200 x 4-5 mm. Venation longitudinal and parallel. Base of the leaf blade expanded to form a clear membrane which sheaths the stem. Seed germination time 27 to 91 days.
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