Walleria

Geophyte with a deep-seated potato-like, large, edible tuber with fibrous roots, annually producing a taproot and a single, erect, rarely branched, ridged, usually prickly, leafy stem, up to +/- 0.6 m tall. Leaves sessile, alternate, linear to lanceolate, successively larger and more foliose upwards, often prickly, apex cirrhose or subulate. Flowers axillary, solitary in each axil, pendulous; peduncle long, thin, erect, prickly, with a bract resembling a minute leaf; pedicel recurved. Perianth with segments fused basally, spreading-reflexed, white, pink or light blue. Stamens 6; filaments short, confluent at base, arising from throat of perianth; anthers connivent, forming a cone. Ovary largely superior, globose. Capsule (? or berry) subglobose, 3-grooved. Seeds rounded-oblong, dark brown, coarsely papillate, papillae bearing small tufts of hairs. x= 12.