Hello all, I recently purchased this pretty succulent, alas with no label. Does anyone know what it is?
I have seen this plant before listed under "succulents". It has semi fleshy leaves and is drought tolerant.
Thanks, Bluewing! You have educated me. Did some research after reading your post, and found that the world of succulents is far larger than I had thought. I learned something today!
Actually its an evergreen xerophytic epigeal bulb but it grows best when given the same care given to succulent plants. The leaves are fleshy but not really very succulent. Succulent plants are found in over 60 different plant families.
It hasn't been in that old catch-all version of the Liliaceae since the 1980's. The old Liliaceae has since been divided up into many reinstated and new families spread across 5 different orders!!! Ledebouria is now in the family Hyacinthaceae. In the modern sense, the family Liliaceae consists only of the bulbous genera Lilium, Nomocharis, Cardocrinum, Notholirion, Fritillaria, Tulipa, Erythronium, Amana, Gagea and Lloydia.
That's not it at all. The way the Liliaceae was defined for so long it was obviously a catch-all and a heterogeneous mess of a wide variety of very different genera, many of which had very little in common upon close examination. Hutchinson's rearrangement of the Englerian system wasn't much help. Monocotyledons did not follow the system traditionally used to classify Dicots. The modern definition of the Monocot plant families is now more natural and supported by morphology and DNA studies. The problem now is that the lumpers are starting to go too far trying to make for larger and more heterogeneous families again. They can't seem to accept that some genera are so unique that they are best placed in monotypic families or that some of the families can only accomodate a few closely allied genera.
