Aristea ecklonii

The genus

Rhizomes with perennial erect leaves in fans. Flowers generally blue, which open early and close by midday (except on overcast days). "Small to large evergreen or seasonal perennials with a thick or slender rhizome; leaves lanceolate to linear or terete; flowering stem sometimes compressed or winged, variously branched or simple; inflorescences composed of 1-many binate rhipidia arranged in panicles or crowded in fascicles on short branches; flowers usually fugaceous, stellate, usually shades of blue, occasionally white or mauve, without nectar or rarely with perigonal nectaries; tepals occasionally with contrasting marks, basally connate, subequal or the inner or outer whorl smaller; style deflexed barely divided apically or broadly 3- winged; seeds several to many and angular to cylindric with oblique ends or 1- 2 per locule, often compressed radically arillate; x=16. About 50 spp., sub-Saharan Africa including Madagascar." reference: Kubitzki " Families and Genera of Vascular Plants Volume III Flowering Plants Monocotyledons"