Description:

• Perennial, bulbous herbs
• Bulb generally with a membranous outer covering or tunic and a number of free or coalescent bulb scales
• Leaves 1-many; basal and well developed (rudimentary in Bowiea and Schizobasis), usually deciduous; usually contemporary with flowers, sometimes developing before or after flowering; usually rosulate, simple, entire, filiform, linear, lanceolate, ovate or rarely orbiculate; usually sheathing at base; maculate or not; sometimes with papillae or hairs
• Inflorescence with 1-many flowers, most often in a solitary and simple raceme or spike, occasionally forming a capitate head, rarely much branched and intricate, and then leaves lacking or strongly reduced; peduncle leafless (except in Bowiea and Schizobasis), glabrous, generally bracteate, at least in lower part
• Flowers bisexual, usually regular, rarely irregular, often showy, white, blue, violet, brown, silver, green, yellow, orange or red
• Tepals 3 + 3, generally similar but sometimes differing in size, shape and position (e.g. Albuca), free or more often fused below forming a campanulate, urceolate or tubular perianth tube
• Stamens 6 in 1 or 2 whorls, or 3 (as in Albuca where outer whorl may be reduced or absent), arising either at base of tepals or in tepal tube; filaments free, connate or fused; anthers 2-thecous, dorsifixed or occasionally basifixed, opening longitudinally or rarely by an apical pore
• Ovary superior, 3-locular; ovules (1)2-many in each locule; placentas axile, rarely basal if ovules 2(1) per locule (Drimiopsis, Ledebouria); style 1, terminating in a punctiform or sometimes distinctly 3-lobed stigma
• Fruit a capsule, usually dehiscing loculicidally, occasionally septicidally
• Seeds rounded to angular, small to large, mostly shiny black

Classification Notes:

• A cautious approach has been taken towards generic delimitation in the family. Currently research projects are being undertaken on several key genera and a number of research publications are pending. Once these are available, with type, duplicate and cited material, then there should be greater clarity
• Many genera in the Hyacinthaceae are much utilised in the horticultural trade and also in traditional medicine

Nomenclature:

• Hyacinthaceae
  • Borkhausen: 315 (1797)
  • Dahlgren et al.: 188 (1985)
  • Stedje: 1 (1996)
• Liliaceae in part
  • Sölch et al.: 1 (1970)
  • Dyer: 915 (1976)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera ± 46, species ± 900; Africa, Eurasia and N America, widely distributed, but most richly represented in southern Africa and in a region from the Mediterranean to SW Asia
• Southern Africa: Genera ± 27, species ± 400

References:

• BORKHAUSEN, M.B. 1797. Botanisches Wörterbuch 1. Heyer, Giessen
• DAHLGREN, R.M.T., CLIFFORD, H.T. & YEO, P.F. 1985. The families of the monocotyledons. Springer-Verlag. Berlin
• DYER, R.A. 1976. The genera of southern African flowering plants, Vol. 2. Botanical Research Institute, Pretoria
• SÖLCH, A., ROESSLER, H. & MERXMÜLLER, H. 1970. Liliaceae. Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 147
• STEDJE, B. 1996. Flora of tropical East Africa. Hyacinthaceae

Resources:

• Key to Hyacinthaceae genera

• Hyacinthaceae genera: