36. Echeandia Ortega, Nov. Pl. Descr. Dec. 135, plate 18. 1800.
[For Pedro Gregorio Echeandía, 1746–1817, Spanish botanist in Zaragosa]
Robert W. Cruden
Herbs, perennial, scapose, from corms with enlarged storage roots. Leaves basal and cauline; blade 2-faced, very narrowly linear to narrowly oblong or elliptic, base surrounded by fibrous leaf bases from previous year. Inflorescences racemose or paniculate, (1–)2–4 flowers per node. Flowers bisexual or pseudohermaphroditic-staminate, ± erect to pendulous; tepals strongly reflexed to spreading, distinct, yellow [orange, white, or cream], 3-veined, ± elliptic, equal; stamens 6; filaments linear to clavate, bearing scales at right angles to axis of filament [scaleless]; anthers connate into cone or distinct, dorsifixed near base, yellow; ovary superior, ellipsoid, ovules 8+ per locule; style 1. Fruits capsular, broadly to narrowly oblong, dehiscence loculicidal. Seeds black, irregularly compressed and folded, colliculose. x = 8.
Species ca. 80 (3 in the flora): sw United States to nw Argentina, s Bolivia, and s Peru.
More than 60 species of Echeandia occur in North America south of the United States. Two of those reach their northern distributional limits in the southwestern United States. The third species included here is known only from the southern tip of Texas.
SELECTED REFERENCES
Cruden, R. W. 1994. Echeandia. In: G. Davidse et al., eds. 1994+. Flora Mesoamericana. 2+ vols. Mexico City. Vol. 6, pp. 27–30. Cruden, R. W. 1999. A new subgenus and fifteen new species of Echeandia (Anthericaceae) from Mexico and the United States. Novon 9: 325–338. Cruden, R. W. and R. McVaugh. 1989. Echeandia. In: R. McVaugh and W. R. Anderson, eds. 1974+. Flora Novo-Galiciana: A Descriptive Account of the Vascular Plants of Western Mexico. 8+ vols. Ann Arbor. Vol. 15, pp. 178–197.
