Asparagaceae, known as the asparagus family, is a

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants t ...

s, placed in the

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of ...

Asparagales of the

monocot Monocotyledons (), commonly referred to as monocots, (Lilianae '' sensu'' Chase & Reveal) are grass and grass-like flowering plants (angiosperms), the seeds of which typically contain only one embryonic leaf, or cotyledon. They constitute one ...

s. The family name is based on the edible garden asparagus, '' Asparagus officinalis''. Those who live in the temperate climates may be surprised to learn that this family includes both common garden plants as well as common houseplants. The garden plants include asparagus,

yucca ''Yucca'' is a genus of perennial shrubs and trees in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Agavoideae. Its 40–50 species are notable for their rosettes of evergreen, tough, sword-shaped leaves and large terminal panicles of white or whitis ...

, bluebell, and hosta, and the houseplants include snake plant, corn cane, spider plant and plumosus fern.

Taxonomy

In earlier classification systems, the species involved were often treated as belonging to the family

Liliaceae The lily family, Liliaceae, consists of about 15 genera and 610 species of flowering plants within the order Liliales. They are monocotyledonous, perennial, herbaceous, often bulbous geophytes. Plants in this family have evolved with a fair ...

. The APG II system of 2003 allowed two options as to the circumscription of the family: either Asparagaceae ''sensu lato'' ("in the wider sense") combining seven previously recognized families, or Asparagaceae ''sensu stricto'' ("in the strict sense") consisting of very few genera (notably '' Asparagus'', also '' Hemiphylacus''), but nevertheless totalling a few hundred species. The revised

APG III system The APG III system of flowering plant classification is the third version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy being developed by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG). Published in 2009, it was superseded in 2016 by a fu ...

of 2009 allows only the broader sense. A paper published at the same time proposed seven subfamilies to correspond to the originally separate families. These are: * subfamily Agavoideae = family Agavaceae and family Hesperocallidaceae (the agaves, yuccas, joshua trees) * subfamily

Aphyllanthoideae ''Aphyllanthes'' is a genus of flowering plants with only one species, ''Aphyllanthes monspeliensis'', endemic to the western Mediterranean region. It is the only genus in the Aphyllanthoideae, a subfamily of the family Asparagaceae Asparaga ...

= family Aphyllanthaceae * subfamily Asparagoideae = family Asparagaceae ''sensu stricto'' * subfamily Brodiaeoideae = family Themidaceae * subfamily

Lomandroideae Lomandroideae is a subfamily of monocot flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae, order Asparagales, according to the APG III system of 2009. The subfamily name is derived from the generic name of the type genus, '' Lomandra''. The group h ...

= family Laxmanniaceae * subfamily Nolinoideae = family Ruscaceae * subfamily

Scilloideae Scilloideae (named after the genus '' Scilla'', "squill") is a subfamily of bulbous plants within the family '' Asparagaceae''. Scilloideae is sometimes treated as a separate family Hyacinthaceae, named after the genus '' Hyacinthus''. Scilloideae ...

= family Hyacinthaceae (hyacinths, bluebells, and squills)

Genera

Asparagaceae includes 114 genera with a total of approximately 2,900 known species. Unless otherwise noted, the alphabetical list below is based on genera accepted by the ''World Checklist of Selected Plant Families'' as in the family Asparagaceae (with synonyms from the same source). The reference against the subfamily name is to the source which places the genus in that subfamily.

References

Bibliography

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Taxonomy

Genera

References

Bibliography

External links