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Fragrant bugle-lily

Watsonia marginata

Also called Wand Watsonia

Fragrant bugle-lily
Photo: Daderot, CC0
Family
Iridaceae (Iris family)
Grows as
Bulb, Perennial
Native range
WSW. & SW. Cape Prov.
Climate
subtropical

About

Watsonia marginata is a species of flowering plant in the family Iridaceae known by the common name fragrant bugle-lily. It is native to the Cape Provinces of South Africa, but it is well known as an ornamental plant grown in gardens for its showy spikes of flowers. Its native range is an area with winter rainfall and dry summers. It is a perennial herb growing from a corm and growing to a maximum height well over one metre when in flower, sometimes reaching two metres. Each corm produces three or four erect leaves that measure up to 80 cm long by 5 wide. They are blue-green with thickened yellow margins. The inflorescence is a dense spike of 30 to 50 flowers which may be any shade of pink or sometimes dark red or white. The flower is actinomorphic, or radially symmetrical, unlike those of other Watsonia, which are zygomorphic. The flowers are several cm long.

Other Watsonia plants

Renoster Watsonia · Wine Watsonia · Amatola Watsonia · Bulbil bugle-lily · Watsonia bachmannii · Watsonia bella · Cape bugle-lily · Mistbelt Watsonia · Dwarf Watsonia · Confusing Watsonia · Dense Watsonia · Lax Watsonia

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Watsonia marginata by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

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