Prosartes lanuginosa (Michx.) D. Don
Family: Liliaceae
Yellow Fairybells
[Disporum lanuginosum (Michx.) G. Nicholson,  more...]
Prosartes lanuginosa image

Plants 4-7.5(-10) dm, finely pubescent. Stems sparingly branched. Leaves 5-15 × 2-5 cm; blade ovate to oblanceolate, rounded basally, adaxial surface glabrate or veins moderately pubescent, abaxial surface lanulose, densely so on veins, margins short-pubescent, hairs uniform, pointed sharply forward, apex narrowly acuminate. Flowers 1-3; perianth turbinate, narrowed basally; tepals spreading, greenish white to greenish yellow, linear-lanceolate to linear-elliptic, 15-22 mm, apex long-acuminate; stamens included, 8-15 mm; filaments narrowly dilated basally, 6-12 mm; anthers 2-4 mm, glabrous; ovary narrowly ellipsoid, glabrous, ovules 2 per locule, pendulous; style stout, 8-12 mm, glabrous; stigma weakly 3-lobed. Berries bright red, 1-2(-4)-seeded, globose, 10-15 mm, glabrous. Seeds 5-6 mm. 2n = 18.

Flowering late spring--early summer. Rich moist, deciduous woods, coves; 200--1600 m; Ont.; Ala., Ark., Ga., Ky., Md., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Pa., S.C., Tenn., Va., W.Va.

Recent collections have extended the known range of Prosartes lanuginosa from the unglaciated Appalachians to the other ancient, eastern North American upland, the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas.

Stem 4-9 dm, dichotomously forked above, hairy when young; lvs sessile, thin, ovate or lance-ovate, 5-12 נ2-5 cm, acuminate, lanulose beneath, the veins densely so; fls in subsessile clusters of 1-3 ending the branches, the pedicels 15-30 mm; tep yellowish-green, unspotted, narrowly lanceolate, 15-25 נ2.5-4 mm; stamens half to two-thirds as long as the perianth, the filaments 6-10 mm; ovary narrowly ellipsoid, glabrous or slightly hairy; ovules pendulous, 2 per locule; stigma trifid; fr red, glabrous; 2n=18. Rich woods; N.Y. to s. Ont., s. to Ga. and Ala., chiefly in the mts. May, early June. (Prosartes l.)

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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