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The Western Australian Herbarium’s collections management system and census were set to read-only mode on 1 October 2025. Taxonomic updates published since this time are not being reflected in Florabase, herbarium collections, or Western Australia’s taxonomic names census (Nomos). Conservation listings displayed on Florabase may also be out of date. Please refer to DBCA’s Threatened species and communities webpage for the most recent Threatened and Priority Flora List, noting that recent taxonomic updates are similarly not included. Our database migration is moving to a staging phase. We thank you for your patience as we ensure the integrity of our biodiversity data, develop new workflows, and train staff to use the new systems. Please reach out to us if you have any questions or concerns.

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Curculigo Gaertn.

Reference
Fruct.Sem.Pl. 1:63, t. 16, fig. 11. (1788)
Name Status
Current

Scientific Description

Family Hypoxidaceae.

Habit and leaf form. Herbs (tufted). Perennial. Leaves basal, or cauline. Bulbaceous, or rhizomatous, or tuberous. Mesophytic. Leaves alternate (clustered); tristichous; sessile (leaves sometimes constricted an pseudopetiolate); sheathing. Leaf sheaths with free margins. Leaves with ‘normal’ orientation; simple; epulvinate. Leaf blades entire; flat, or folded (complicate or more or less plicate or arched); linear, or lanceolate; oblong (narrowly), or linear; parallel-veined (or prominently veined); without cross-venules; sheathing, base more or less persisting as a tunic. Leaves without stipules. Leaf blade margins serrate. Leaves with a persistent basal meristem, and basipetal development. Leaf anatomy. Hairs present (or glabrescent). Extra-floral nectaries absent. Stem anatomy. Secondary thickening absent.

Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite, or functionally male and functionally female, or hermaphrodite and functionally male. Unisexual flowers present, or absent. Plants hermaphrodite, or monoecious, or andromonoecious (commonly). The unisexual flowers when monoecious, aggregated in different parts of the same inflorescence. Floral nectaries absent (nectaries lacking).

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers solitary, or aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in racemes (spike-like), or in spikes, or in heads. The terminal inflorescence unit racemose. Inflorescences scapiflorous; terminal, or axillary; peduncle short; scape very short, leafless, arising from the corm; inflorescence shorter than the leaves, 1–10 flowered, 1–3 basal flowers bisexual with the flowers above male; with involucral bracts, or without involucral bracts. Flowers pedicellate, or sessile (more or less sessile); bracteate (1 per flower, lowest spathe-like and sheathing, attenuate); ebracteolate; regular; 3 merous; cyclic. Perigone tube present. Perianth of ‘tepals’; 6; 2 -whorled; isomerous; petaloid; similar in the two whorls; yellow; persistent (patent). Fertile stamens present, or absent. Androecial members definite in number. Androecium 6. Androecial members adnate; united with the gynoecium; all equal; free of one another; 2 -whorled (3+3). Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 6 (in 2 whorls); all more or less similar in shape; isomerous with the perianth, or reduced in number relative to the adjacent perianth; at the base of the perianth lobes at the mouth of the tube. Anthers dorsifixed, or basifixed; versatile; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse; tetrasporangiate. Gynoecium 3 carpelled. The pistil 2–3 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synovarious to synstylovarious; inferior. Ovary plurilocular; 2–3 locular. Gynoecium stylate. Styles 1; free to partially joined; apical. Stigmas 3; 2–3 - lobed. Placentation axile. Ovules few, many; arillate, or non-arillate; anatropous, or hemianatropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit fleshy; dehiscent, or indehiscent; a capsule, or capsular-indehiscent. Capsules splitting irregularly. Fruit few. Seeds copiously endospermic. Endosperm oily. Testa encrusted with phytomelan.