Disporum

Rough-fruited fairybells Disporum trachycarpum, copyright Jason Hollinger.

Belongs within: Liliaceae.
Contains: Disporum sect. Disporum.

Disporum is a genus of rhizomatous herbs found in east Asia and North America.

Characters (from Hara 1988): Perennial herb, glabrous or pubescent. Rhizome thickened with fleshy roots, or slender and long-creeping. Stem erect, simple or branched (often dichotomously) in the upper part, with one to several sheathing bracts in the lower part, and with normal leaves in the upper part. Leaves alternate, sessile or shortly petioled, linear to roundish. Inflorescence terminal, or in appearance lateral (i.e. terminal on a short lateral branchlet opposite to a leaf). Flower solitary to umbellate, on slender inarticulate pedicel, without bract, rotate to cylindric-campanulate, drooping or spreading. Tepals 6 in two similar series, seubequal, free, oblanceolate to obovate, whitish, greenish, yellow, or dark purple, often saccate or spurred at the base, caducous with stamen. Stamens 6, included or exserted, inserted on the very base of tepal; filaments often filiform, sometimes thickened in lower part; anthers generally oblong, basifixed, extrorse, laterally dehiscent. Pollen grains usually monocolpate (in D. calcaratum 2-4-colpate), with reticulate exine, sometimes with tuberculate muri. Ovary obovoid or globose, three-celled; ovules 2-6 per locule; style filiform, three-lobed in upper part, with three stigmas. Berry subglobose or slightly 3-coccous, blue-black or red when mature. Seeds globose or ovoid, smooth, with stony endocarp.

<==Disporum Salisbury ex Don 1825 [incl. Drapiezia Blume 1827] H88
    |  i. s.: D. luzoniense Merrill 1910 H88
    |--D. sect. Prosartes (Don) Jones 1951 [=Prosartes Don 1839] H88
    |    |--D. (sect *Prosartes) lanuginosum H88
    |    `--+--D. maculatum H88
    |       `--+--D. hookeri H88
    |          `--+--D. smithii H88
    |             `--D. trachycarpum H88
    `--+--D. sect. Disporum H88
       |--D. sect. Ovalia Hara 1988 nec Ovalia Latreille in Griffith & Pidgeon 1833 (ICZN) nec Nalivkin 1937 (ICZN) H88
       |    `--D. (sect. *Ovalia) ovale Ohwi 1931 [=Streptopus ovalis (Ohwi) Wang & Tang 1978] H88
       |         |--D. o. f. ovale H88
       |         `--D. o. f. albiflorum (Lee & Lee) Hara 1988 [=D. ovale var. albiflorum Lee & Lee ex Lee 1979] H88
       `--D. sect. Paradisporum Hara 1988 H88
            `--D. (sect. *Paradisporum) acuminatum Wright 1929 H88

*Type species of generic name indicated

REFERENCES

[H88] Hara, H. 1988. A revision of the Asiatic species of the genus Disporum (Liliaceae). In The Himalayan Plants vol. 1 (H. Ohba & S. B. Malla, eds) The University Museum, University of Tokyo, Bulletin 31: 163-209.