Bessera is a small genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Themidaceae (the cluster lily subfamily), placed within the broader order Asparagales. The genus is endemic to Mexico and comprises around four to five accepted species, all growing from corms and producing terminal umbels of tubular flowers. The flowers bear six tepals (three petals and three petaloid sepals) and compound pistils, giving the blooms a distinctive pendant, bell-like appearance.
The most widely recognised member is Bessera elegans Schult.f., known commonly as coral drops, which bears drooping umbels of vivid red-and-white flowers on slender stems. It is distributed across central to southern Mexico and has been taken into cultivation as a half-hardy ornamental, valued for its showy, nodding flower clusters produced in summer and autumn. Other accepted species include B. tuitensis, restricted to the coastal southwestern Mexican state of Jalisco, and two recently described species, B. elegantissima and B. ramirezii.
The genus was formerly more broadly circumscribed; numerous taxa once placed in Bessera have since been reassigned to unrelated genera, reflecting how the name was historically applied loosely before modern systematic revision.
Etymology
The genus Bessera is named in honour of Wilibald Swibert Joseph Gottlieb von Besser (1784–1842), a botanist of Austrian birth who worked extensively in the Russian Empire and made significant contributions to the study of European and Central Asian flora.
Distribution
Bessera is endemic to Mexico. B. elegans occurs across central to southern Mexico, while B. tuitensis is known only from Jalisco state on the coastal southwestern coast. The genus grows in seasonally dry habitats characteristic of Mexican highland and Pacific-slope flora.
Cultivation
Bessera elegans (coral drops) is the sole cultivated member of the genus. It is grown as a half-hardy ornamental in temperate gardens, where the corms are typically planted in a warm, sheltered position in free-draining soil and lifted before hard frost in climates where the ground freezes. In mild climates corms can remain in the ground year-round. Plants flower in summer to autumn, producing pendant umbels of red-and-white tubular flowers on slender stems.
