Authors: Thunb.  

Botanical Description

Sisyrinchium odoratissimum). Forming small tufts 15-45cm (usually 20-30cm) in height from a short, tough rhizome. Leaves arching, rush-like, pointed, 4-20cm long, evenly and smoothly ridged longitudinally. Flowers in nodding cymes of three to seven, 3cm long, trumpet-shaped, cream to pale yellow, more or less purple-veined and sometimes flushed the same colour, on peduncles 4-11cm high, early to late summer in the wild. Argentina and Chile from southern Patagonia to Tierra del Fuego in grassland, low scrub and coastal steppe, from sea level to 1000m. P. lyckholmii (syn. F.b. subsp. lyckholmii) has stems with tuberculate stem ridges, peduncles up to 3.5cm tall, one to three shorter-tubed, more erect flowers which come in varied shades of brownish-red or orange to burgundy-red. Same geographical range, but on bare stony slopes and just below summits, also on soily banks of mountain rivers.