Garden asparagus |
Habit,
female flower, phylloclades and berry of the
garden asparagus
| Asparagus officinalis L.: | |
| Blooming period: | June–July |
| Height: | 60–150 cm |
| Flowers: | bisexual or monosexual, actinomorphic, Ø 3–6 mm, stamens: 6, styles: 1 |
| Tepals: | 6, whitish, yellowish or greenish, fused at the base |
| Leaves: | reduced to scales |
Plants perennial, herbaceous, dioecious, with a thick, short, bulbous rootstock. Male plants dense, female plants slim.
Stem upright, glabrous, smooth, woody at the base, above highly branched.
Stem leaves reduced to scales with a short spur at the base. Out of their axils grow bundles of mostly 4–20 acicular phylloclades (short shoots, which take over the function of leaves).
The flowers are solitary or arranged in pairs or threes in the axils of the branches. The flower stalk is 2–20 mm long and has a knot at the center.
Male flowers bell-shaped, 5–6 mm long, female flowers spherical, about 3 mm long. Occasionally occur hermaphrodite flowers.
Petals and sepals not in divided in corolla and calyx (= perigonium), whitish, yellowish or greenish, fused at the base.
The fruits are round berries with 2–3 seeds, initially green, red when ripe, Ø 8 mm. Berries poisonous!
| Floral formula: |
| ♂ * [P3+3 A3+3] G0 ♀ * P3+3 A0 G(3) superior or * [P3+3 A3+3] G(3) superior |
Occurrence:
Roadsides,
dunes, shore, wastelands. Prefers warm, dry and relatively
nitrogen-poor locations.
Distribution:
Initially
Europe, except in the North, Central and South-West Asia, North-West
Africa. As useful plant cosmopolitan represented.