Lily Family. Scapose or leafy-stemmed herbs from bulbs or corms, or rarely with root-stocks or a woody caudex (Yucca), the leaves various. Flowers solitary or clustered, regular, mostly perfect. Perianth parted into 6 distinct or nearly distinct segments, or these more or less united into a tube, inferior, or partly superior (Aletris). Stamens 6, hypogynous or borne on the perianth or at the bases of its segments; anthers 2-celled, mostly introrse, sometimes extrorse. Ovary 3-celled; ovules few or numerous in each cavity, anatropous or amphitropous; styles united; stigma 3-lobed or capitate. Fruit a loculicidal capsule (septicidal in Calochortus), or in Yucca sometimes fleshy and indehiscent. Embryo in copious endosperm.

About 125 genera and 1300 species, widely distributed.

* Plants bulbous, or with rootstocks, or fibrous-fleshy roots.

+ Ovary superior, not adnate to the perianth.

Roots fibrous-fleshy; scape tall; flowers orange or yellow.

1.

Hemerocallis.

Low fleshy herb with a short rootstock; flowers white.

2.

Leucocrinum.

Plants with bulbs or corms.

Flowers umbelled.

Perianth 6-parted.

Odor characteristically onion-like: ovules 1 or 2 in each cavity.

3.

Allium.

Odor not onion-like; ovules several in each cavity.

4.

Nothoscordum.

Perianth funnelform, the tube about as long as the lobes.

5.

Androstephium.

Flowers solitary, racemed, corymbed or panicled.

Anthers not introrse.

Perianth-segments all alike or nearly so; capsule loculicidal.

Anthers versatile: tall herbs.

6.

Lilium.

Anthers not versatile; low herbs.

Stem leafy.

Flowers nodding; perianth-segments with a nectary at the base

7..

Fritillaria.

Flowers erect; perianth-segments without a nectary.

8.

Tithpa.

Leaves only 2, appearing basal; flowers bractless.

9.

Erythronium.

Outer segments narrower than the inner; capsule septicidal.

10.

Calochortus.

Anthers introrse.

Perianth of 6 separate segments.

Filaments filiform.

11.

Quamasia.

Filaments flattened.

12.

Ornithogalum.

Perianth globose, oblong or urn-shaped.

13.

Muscari.

++ Ovary half inferior; roots fibrous; flowers racemed.

14.

Alctris.

** Stem a woody caudex; leaves rigid, mostly bearing marginal fibers.

15.

Yucca.