Freesia

Family Iridaceae Name: given after the German botanist and physician Friedrich Friz (1795-1876).

Description: native range - South Africa, grows along moist banks, among shrubs. Corm covered with thin light-brown scales; corm leaves linear, 15-20 cm long, 1-1.5 cm wide, thin, with a prominent central vein, stem glabrous. Flowers 2-5 in a lax one-sided branched inflorescence. Flowers very fragrant, narrowly funnel-shaped, 3-5 cm long, tube weak, narrow at the base, then abruptly widening. Lobes of the perianth oval, acute, the central upper lobe broader and obtuse. Stamens 3, attached inside the tube. Ovary three-chambered, seed capsules small, obovoid, three-chambered; seeds dark brown, angular-rounded. Introduced into cultivation in the early 19th century.