Synonyms: Anomatheca APNI*
Description: Small perennial herbs with annual leaves and flowers; corm conical with tunic of netted fibres.
Leaves mostly basal, lanceolate to sword-shaped, equitant. Scape usually erect, flexed horizontally below spike; spike short; spathe bracts herbaceous or membranous, inner smaller, apex 2-fid; spathes 1-flowered.
Flowers erect, secund, zygomorphic. Perianth tube curved, narrow-cylindrical below, widened abruptly into cylindrical upper portion; lobes subequal or 2-lipped with uppermost lobe larger and hooded, shorter than tube. Stamens with anthers grouped on 1 side of the style. Style filiform, curved, 3-branched; branches linear, 2-fid to about half way, recurved; stigmas 6.
Capsule subglobose to oblong, 3-lobed, papillose; seeds several per loculus, globose, smooth, shiny.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 11 species, southern Africa. Australia: 2 species (naturalized).
Text by T. A. James & E. A. Brown
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Flowers white to cream with yellow markings, shaded purple on the outside of the tube | Freesia hybrid |
| Flowers pink with crimson markings on lower 3 petals towards the centre of the flower | Freesia laxa |
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