Ixia L.
Summer-green perennial. Corm small; tunic fibrous. Stem wiry, simple or occasionally branched. Leaves few, distichous, grass-like, soft to firm; veins prominent. Inflorescence simple or branched, few- to many-flowered. Flowers usually many, mostly actinomorphic, colours various, spirally and ± densely arranged on the slender scape, each within 2 membranous or chartaceous, usually brown, ovate, truncate, usually tridentate, spathe-valves; tube short or long, straight, cylindrical and slender or dilated above; lobes subequal, spreading. Stamens symmetrical. Style-branches entire, subulate or filiform. Capsule oblong to globose, thin-walled. Seeds many, small, brown, ± angled. Spp. c. 45, 1 of tropical Africa, remainder from S. Africa. Adventive spp. 2.
Key
Although the records for Ixia spp. and their first collections are relatively recent, Allan (Handbk Nat. Fl. N.Z. 1940, 305) had already noted for Ixia that "various garden forms escape".
I. paniculata Delaroche has been once collected on Muriwai Road near Waimauku, Auckland from a grass bank on the roadside - E. Edgar and S. J. Astridge, 10.10.1972, " . . . only one clump seen" (CHR 224767). The inflorescence is branched, and the cream, purple-throated flowers have a noticeably long perianth-tube, to 7 cm long, in contrast to the short tube, (0.5)-1-1.5- (2) cm, of I. maculata, and 0.5-1 cm of I. polystachya.
