COLCHICACEAE - COLCHICUM FAMILY
Scientific Description:
Perennial cormous or rhizomatous herbs, erect or climbing. Leaves simple, alternate; margins entire, often sheathing; venation palmate-parallel; petioles absent, rarely present. Inflorescences cymes, racemes, panicles, umbel-like or solitary flowers; sometimes bracteate. Flowers bisexual or unisexual (some Wurmbea Thunb.), actinomorphic, sometimes slightly zygomorphic. Perianth tepals free or basally fused (some Anguillaeieae and some Colchiceae), often nectaries. Stamen filaments free or attached to perianth, sometimes with nectar glands; anthers dorsifixed, usually extrorse. Ovary superior; carpels ± fused; locules (2−)3(−4); ovules few to many per locule; placentation axile; styles 3 or 1 with 3 stigmas. Fruit a capsule, rarely a berry (Disporum Salisb.).
Reference:
Byng JW (2014). Colchicaceae, In: The Flowering Plants Handbook: A practical guide to families and genera of the world. Plant Gateway Ltd., Hertford, UK., pp. 65.
Public Description:
“Colchicum family”consists of perennial herbaceous plants that naturally spread throughout Asia, Europe, Australia and South Africa. They have funnel-shaped purple, pink, or white flowers andstructures such as cormsor rhizomes that provide asexual reproduction under the soil. Autumn-crocuses (Colchicum L.) contain the alkaloid “colchicine” which is used pharmaceutically to treat gout and Familial Mediterranean fever.
References:
Anonymous 1 (2016). http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/Colchicaceae/, Accessed date: 21.02.2016.
Anonymous 2 (2016). https://gobotany.newenglandwild.org/family/colchicaceae/, Accessed date: 21.02.2016.
