Dracaena
floribunda
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These are herbaceous perennial plants with a bulb, corm or rhizome. They are rarely shrubs or bushes and are seldom climbing plants. The leaves are radical, mostly long and narrow, sometimes fleshy or else reduced to small scales. Flowers are hermaphrodite, rarely unisexual and solitary, or are arranged in bunches, panicules, umbels or capitula. The perianth is actinomorphic, 6 in numbers and can be free or fused in a tube. Generally there are 6 stamens. The ovary is superior and trilocular. The style is entire or trifid and rarely free. The fruit exists in the form of a capsule or sometimes as a berry.
This family is represented in all parts of the world, four members of which are endemic to Mauritius. Of these four, only Dracaena floribunda is found in Mondrain.
Dracaena
The plants have slender or robust stems with persistent foliar scars. The leaves are densely grouped at the tip of the branches. These can also be helically arranged, are usually non-petiolate with an almost entire margin. The inflorescence is terminal and is rarely a simple raceme. The flowers are bisexual with a fused tube-like perianth. The stamens are 6 in numbers and inserted at the tip of the tube. Cross-sections of the filaments show that these are roughly circular. The ovary is trilocular, smooth and there is a long style.
The ovules are arranged in
an axile manner and occur singly per locule. The fruits exist as berries
with the grains being rough and brown.