Herbs, smelling strongly of onions. Rootstock a rhizome or bulb. Flowers in umbels, subtended by 2 spathe-like bracts, borne on a solitary peduncle. Perianth segments united into a tube for about half their length; mouth of tube with a fleshy corona which is cylindric or composed of 3 free scales. Capsule loculicidal. Seeds numerous, triangular, black. Derivation of name: After Rijk Tulbagh (1699-1771), a Dutch governor of the Cape of Good Hope Worldwide: 22 species in tropical and South Africa Zimbabwe: 6 taxa. |