Description:

• Perennial or biennial, alkaloid-rich herbs, mostly bulbous with thick fleshy scales, occasionally rhizomatous; roots contractile, with scalariform vessels
• Leaves basal, distichous or rosulate; petioles, if present, often forming a false stem; blade simple, entire, linear to almost orbicular, sheathing at base, parallel-veined, glabrous or pubescent; mucilage-filled cells or raphides present in mesophyll; stomata anomocytic
• Inflorescence of reduced helicoid cymes, appearing umbel-like, 1-many-flowered; scape leafless, solid or hollow, glabrous or rarely pubescent; spathe-valves 1-many, obvolute or equitant, membranous and ephemeral or fleshy, brightly coloured and persistent
• Flowers bisexual, regular or irregular, trimerous, showy; pedicels short to long, stiff to lax
• Tepals 6, in 2 equal or subequal series, free or partly connate into a short or long tube
• Stamens 3 + 3, rarely more (Gethyllis), opposite tepals, arising from tepal base or perigone tube; filaments free or partly adnate to tepals, often connate into a short tube or large cup (false corona) at base; anthers 2-locular, basifixed or medifixed, versatile or filaments sometimes inserted into a sheath formed by connective, introrse or latrorse, opening by longitudinal slits or rarely by apical pores; pollen monosulcate with reticulate exine or bisulculate with spinulose exine
• Ovary inferior, 3-locular; style simple, slender, rarely strumose or winged basally (Strumaria); ovules 1-many per locule, centrally inserted, either bitegmic or unitegmic to ategmic; nectaries septal, rarely protruding into swollen style base
• Fruit loculicidally dehiscent or indehiscent; pericarp dry or fleshy
• Seeds variable, either dry, flattened and phytomelanous, globose to wedge-shaped and sometimes phytomelanous, or water-rich, subglobose and nonphytomelanous; embryo often green

Nomenclature:

• Amaryllidaceae
  • Herbert: 53 (1837) in part
  • Baker: 171 (1896) in part
  • Hutchinson: 128 (1934) in part
  • Markötter: 1 (1936)
  • Barker: 108 (1939) in part
  • Traub: 76 (1957) in part
  • Hutchinson: 639 (1959) in part
  • Traub: 8 (1963)
  • Huber: 394 (1969)
  • Sölch & Roessler: 1 (1969)
  • Arroyo & Cutler: 467 (1984)
  • Schulze: 985 (1984)
  • Dahlgren et al.: 199 (1985)
  • Meerow: 169 (1995)
  • Snijman & Linder: 362 (1996)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera ± 60 and over 800 species; principally in warm temperate and tropical regions throughout the world. The family is most diverse in southern Africa followed by Andean South America
• Southern Africa: Genera 18, species ± 280

References:

• ARROYO, S.C. & CUTLER, D.F. 1984. Evolutionary and taxonomic aspects of the internal morphology in Amaryllidaceae from South America and southern Africa. Kew Bulletin 39
• BAKER, J.G. 1896. Amaryllideae. Flora capensis 6
• BARKER, W.F. 1939. South African Amaryllidaceae discovered since 1888. Herbertia 6
• DAHLGREN, R.M.T., CLIFFORD, H.T. & YEO, P.F. 1985. The families of the monocotyledons. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
• HERBERT, W. 1837. Amaryllidaceae. James Ridgway & Sons, London
• HUBER, H. 1969. Die Samenmerkmale und Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse der Liliifloren. Mitteillungen aus der Botanischen Staatssammlung München 8
• HUTCHINSON, J. 1934. The families of flowering plants, Vol. 2. Monocotyledons. MacMillan, London
• HUTCHINSON, J. 1959. The families of flowering plants, Vol. 2, edn 2. MONOCOTYLEDONS. Clarenden Press, Oxford
• MARKÖTTER, E.I. 1936. Die lewensgeskiedenis van sekere geslagte van die Amaryllidaceae. Annale van die Universiteit van Stellenbosch, Vol. 14,A,2
• MEEROW, A.W. 1995. Towards a phylogeny of the Amaryllidaceae. In P.J. Rudall, P.J. Cribb, D.F. Cutler & C.J. Humphries, Monocotyledons: systematics and evolution, Vol. 2. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
• SCHULZE, W. 1984. Beiträge zur Taxonomie der Liliifloren 14. Der Umfang der Amaryllidaceae. Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena/Thüringen. Mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Reihe 32
• SNIJMAN, D.A. & LINDER, H.P. 1996. Phylogenetic relationships, seed characters, and dispersal system evolution in Amaryllideae (Amaryllidaceae). Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 83
• SÖLCH, A. & ROESSLER, H. 1969. Amaryllidaceae. Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 150
• TRAUB, H.P. 1957. Classification of the Amaryllidaceae: subfamilies, tribes and genera. Plant Life 13
• TRAUB, H.P. 1963. Genera of the Amaryllidaceae. American Plant Life Society, La Jolla, California

Resources:

• Key to Amaryllidaceae genera

• Amaryllidaceae genera: