Bessera
Genus of flowering plants
Bessera is a genus of Mexican plants in the cluster lily subfamily within the asparagus family. It is a small genus of 5 known species of mostly herbaceous flowering plants with corms. They have flowers with petals and petaloid sepals (tepals) with compound pistils.
The genus is named for Austrian and Russian botanist Wilibald Swibert Joseph Gottlieb von Besser (1784-1842).
Bessera elegans, called coral drops, is cultivated and is a half-hardy Mexican herbaceous plant growing from corms with drooping terminal umbels of showy red-and-white colored flowers.
01Taxonomy
Species
Plants of the World Online currently accepts four species:
- Bessera elegans Schult.f., central to southern Mexico.
- Bessera elegantissima E.Gándara, Ortiz-Brunel, Art.Castro & Ruiz-Sanchez
- Bessera ramirezii E.Gándara, Ortiz-Brunel, Art.Castro & Ruiz-Sanchez
- Bessera tuitensis R.Delgad., Jalisco state in coastal southwestern Mexico.
Former species
Some species formerly placed in Bessera have been reclassified to other genera, including Androstephium, Drypetes, Flueggea, Guapira, and Pulmonaria.
Former species include:
- Bessera azurea, Pulmonaria angustifolia
- Bessera breviflora, Androstephium breviflorum
- Bessera calycantha, Guapira opposita
- Bessera inermis, Flueggea virosa
- Bessera spinosa, Drypetes alba
- Bessera tenuiflora (Greene) J.F.Macbr., Behria tenuiflora Greene
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Bessera”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- 34 Bessera elegans.jpg by Botanical Register, Public domain
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