Description:

• Herbaceous geophytes, with vertical rhizomes or fibrous corms, often pubescent with uniseriate or pluriseriate hairs; roots with scalariform perforation plates
• Leaves basal, 1-many, tristichous, striate, deciduous or persistent, dorsiventral, linear to lanceolate, sometimes pseudopetiolate or plicate, often containing raphides; bases fibrous, enclosed in tubular membranous sheaths; stomata paracytic
• Inflorescence spicate, racemose or corymbose, sometimes reduced to a single flower; scape leafless, often hairy; bracts present or 0
• Flowers bisexual, regular, trimerous or rarely tetramerous; pedicels long or short
• Tepals 6(4), free or fused into a sometimes long, narrow tube, persistent or deciduous, yellow, orange, red, pink or white; lower surface often green or lined with red, glabrous or pubescent
• Stamens 6(2, 3 or 4); filaments short, free, arising from tepal base; anthers basifixed or dorsifixed, bilocular, introrse or latrorse, opening by longitudinal slits, entire or 2-lobed at base, rarely with apical appendages; pollen sulcate with finely reticulate exine
• Ovary inferior, 3-locular with axile placentation, or 1-locular with 3 parietal placentas; ovules few to many; nectaries 0; style 1(0), short; stigmas (2)3 or 6
• Fruit dehiscent and either a circumscissile, septicidal or loculicidal capsule, or indehiscent, subsucculent and sometimes beaked
• Seeds subglobose, rarely J-shaped, with a thick, dark brown or black, brittle, smooth to verrucose phytomelan crust; raphe prominent; hilum distinct

Classification Notes:

• As shown in Baker's (1896) classification of Amaryllidaceae, the epigynous flowers, paracytic stomata, and fibrous leaf bases of Hypoxidaceae were previously taken to reflect an affinity with Velloziaceae. Important differences in leaf anatomy and seed morphology, however, led to the separation of Hypoxidaceae and Velloziaceae into different orders (Dahlgren et al., 1985). The generic concepts within Hypoxidaceae have continued to vary since Nel's (1914a, 1914b) major work on the family. The establishment of stable generic concepts still awaits a thorough character survey of the entire family.

Nomenclature:

• Hypoxidaceae
  • Baker: 93 (1878)
  • Baker: 171 (1896)
  • Nel: 234 (1914a)
  • Nel: 287 (1914b)
  • Markötter: 13 (1936)
  • De Vos: 159 (1948)
  • Hutchinson: 166 (1934)
  • Hutchinson: 678 (1959)
  • Sölch & Roessler: 1 (1969)
  • Geerinck: 66 (1969)
  • Thompson: 111 (1976)
  • Thompson: 429 (1978)
  • Hilliard & Burtt: 43 (1978)
  • Dahlgren et al.: 161 (1985)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera 9, species ± 130, widespread in South America, Australia and tropical Asia but most diverse in southern Africa, where 5 of the 6 genera are endemic
• Southern Africa: Genera 6, species ± 88

Additional Notes:

• Many Hypoxis species are an important source of medicine in southern Africa

References:

• BAKER, J.G. 1878. A synopsis of Hypoxidaceae. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 17
• BAKER, J.G. 1896. Amaryllideae. Flora capensis 6
• DAHLGREN, R.M.T., CLIFFORD, H.T. & YEO, P.F. 1985. The families of the monocotyledons. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
• DE VOS, M.P. 1948. The development of the ovule and the seed in the Hypoxidaceae. Journal of South African Botany 14
• GEERINCK, D. 1969. Genera des Haemodoraceae et des Hypoxidaceae. Bulletin du Jardin Botanique National de Belgique 39
• HILLIARD, O.M. & BURTT, B.L. 1978. Notes on some plants from southern Africa chiefly from Natal. Notes from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 36
• 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. Clarendon Press, Oxford
• MARKÖTTER, E.I. 1936. Die lewensgeskiedenis van sekere geslagte van die Amaryllidaceae. Annale van die Universiteit van Stellenbosch, Vol. 14,A,2
• NEL, G.C. 1914a. Studien über die Amaryllidaceae-Hypoxidaceae, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der afrikanischen Arten. Botanische Jahrbücher 51
• NEL, G.C. 1914b. Die afrikanischen Arten der Amaryllidaceae-Hypoxidaceae. Botanische Jahrbücher 51
• SÖLCH, A. & ROESSLER, H. 1969. Hypoxidaceae. Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 151
• THOMPSON, M.F. 1976. Studies in the Hypoxidaceae. 1. Vegetative morphology and anatomy. Bothalia 12
• THOMPSON, M.F. 1978. Studies in the Hypoxidaceae. 2. Floral morphology and anatomy. Bothalia 12

Resources:

• Key to Hypoxidaceae genera

• Hypoxidaceae genera: