Botany Photo of the Day

Many thanks to Gabriela R. aka Morti Riuuallon@Flickr for sharing today's photograph (original image | BPotD Flickr Group Pool). Gabriela resides in Buenos Aries, Argentina; do take the time to visit her set of Flickr photographs with its Argentinian flora and fauna. Thanks again, Gabriela!

As the wildflower season (and indeed, garden flower season) winds down where I reside, spring flowers are starting in South America, Australia and Africa; this gives BPotD an opportunity to show flowers “in season” year-round when generous people from around the world share their images. Of course, BPotD isn't all about flowers (as the previous week's images will attest to), but warm, bright colours will certainly be a welcome respite for those in the northern hemisphere over the coming months.

A member of the onion family, Tristagma uniflorum is known as springstar in English, or, as Gabriela notes, estrellita in Spanish. Its classification remains tentative, as not all botanists agree that it belongs to the genus Tristagma. Gabriela also lists its synonyms: Ipheion uniflora, Brodiaea uniflora, Milla uniflora and Triteleia uniflora. This thread of confusion is also woven into the account of the genus Tristagma on the Pacific Bulb Society wiki. In fact, they opt to disregard the name of Tristagma uniflorum proposed by Traub, instead using the name Ipheion uniflora.