Liriope muscari.
The Turf lily or Blue lily turf has around 25 synonyms including Ophiopogon muscari.
It is a fairly common ground cover in Brisbane.
The perennial evergreen plants form dense clumps 20 to 45 or 50 cm high.
There is a short underground stem or caudex from which the roots, leaves and inflorescences grow.
Below-ground lateral branches from the caudex lead to the formation of new plants.
There are dense pale branching fibrous roots that occasionally have a small tuber at the end.
There are usually no rhizomes.
The erect and arching leaves, all arising at the base of the plant have a wider sheathing base.
They are 25 to 55 (65) cm long and often under 1 cm wide but may be up to 2 cm.
The glossy dark green linear leaves have parallel veins, a blunt or slightly pointed tip and minute teeth on the edge near the tip.
Each plant in a clump can have one erect spike-like flower stalk from the basal caudex.
The spikes are in 2 sections – a pale green bare stalk or scape around 10 to 50 cm long and an upper inflorescence with the flowers.
The inflorescence stalk (described as the peduncle, rachis or midrib) is around 6 to 20 cm long.
It can be called a reduced panicle as some flowers are attached to it while others are on short side branches or secondary peduncles.
There can be up to 50 small clusters of 2 to 8 flowers.
Flowers are on a short stalk or pedicel 3 to 4 mm long.
There is a 5 to 10 mm long triangular bract at the base of each peduncle and a 3 to 6 mm bracteole at the base of each pedicel.
The pale purple pedicels have a distinct line of separation (articulation) allowing the fruit to fall easily.
The cup-shaped flowers have 6 tepals 3 to 4 mm long in 2 alternating whorls of 3.
Those in the inner whorl (petals) usually have their bases fused for up to 0.5 mm.
The oblong to elliptic tepals, around 2 mm wide can be violet to purple or lavender and sometimes white.
There are 6 stamens, with violet filaments around 1.5 mm long that are attached to the base of the tepals.
The yellow anthers, around 1.5 mm long have two pollen sacs that open through apical pores.
The tips of the anthers are blunt or rounded.
The superior ovary, 2 mm long has a single club-shaped style around 2 mm long with a slightly 3-lobed stigma.
The roughly spherical fruit, loosely called berries are 5 to 8 mm across and mature from green to a shiny black.
Each inflorescence may only have a few mature fruit as many do not develop.
The brown to black seed is surrounded by a thin fleshy layer.
There are a number of cultivars of different sizes and with flowers of different shades of blue to purple plus white.
Many cultivars have leaves variegated with white or yellow.
J.F.
