Tofieldia is a small genus of flowering plants described as a genus in 1778. It is widespread across much of Europe, Asia, and North America.
Tofieldia was once placed in the lily family, but is now generally included in the newer family Tofieldiaceae. The genus sometimes includes species of genus Triantha. Tofieldia are rhizomatous perennial herbs with spikes or racemes of lily-like flowers.
The name Tofieldia commemorates the British botanist Thomas Tofield.
Description
Green glabrous perennials from short creeping rhizomes; leaves mostly radical, 2-ranked, laterally flattened, linear; scapes slender, few-leaved or naked; racemes sometimes spikelike, the flowers small, on short pedicels, in axils of bracts, solitary or in 3’s, bracteolate; tepals 6, persistent, linear-oblong to oblanceolate, white, greenish, or brownish red; stamens 6, the filaments linear-subulate, the anthers ovate, introrse, 2-locular; ovary superior, sessile, ovoid, 3-lobed at apex, the ovules numerous; styles short, the stigma introrse; capsules septicidal, 3-locular, the seeds small, narrowly oblong, caudate at one end or without appendage. About 20 species, in the temperate and northern regions of the N. Hemisphere.
Species
Tofieldia calyculata (L.) Wahlenb. ("German Asphodel") - much of Europe from Spain to Ukraine
Tofieldia cernua Sm. - Siberia + Russian Far East
Tofieldia coccinea Richardson - Russia, Mongolia, China, Japan, Korea, Alaska, Canada
Tofieldia divergens Bureau & Franch. - China (Guizhou, Sichuan, Yunnan)
Tofieldia furusei (Hiyama) M.N.Tamura & Fuse - Honshu
Tofieldia glabra Nutt. - North and South Carolina
Tofieldia himalaica Baker - Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh
Tofieldia × hybrida A.Kern. ex Asch. & Graebn. - Austrian and Italian Alps
Tofieldia nuda Maxim. - Honshu, Kyushu
Tofieldia okuboi Makino - Japan, Kuril Islands
Tofieldia pusilla (Michx.) Pers. ("Scottish Asphodel") - Subarctic + Subalpine Europe, Asia and North America
Tofieldia thibetica...
