Description:

• Robust, monocarpic, usually rosulate perennials arising from short rhizome or short erect caudex
• Stem commonly with monocotyledonous type secondary growth
• Leaves usually crowded in basal rosette, leathery to succulent, amplexicaul, persisting for many years; each vascular bundle with well-developed fibrous cap at phloem pole
• Inflorescence apical, tall, fast-growing, terminating in a panicle, often massive
• Flowers bisexual, regular or somewhat irregular, tubular, pedicellate, trimerous throughout
• Perianth petaloid, 3 + 3, often fleshy, united below to form a tube
• Stamens 3 + 3; anthers mostly dorsifixed, introrse, versatile, opening by longitudinal slits, linear to oblong
• Ovary inferior, trilocular, with septal nectaries; placentation axile; ovules in 2 vertical rows in each locule; style terminal; stigma 3-lobed
• Fruit a loculicidal capsule
• Seeds many, flattened, centrally embedded in copious, very hard endosperm
• x = 30

Nomenclature:

• *Agavaceae
  • Cronquist: 1217 (1981)
  • Dahlgren et al.: 157 (1985)
  • Bogler & Simpson: 191 (1995)
  • Hernández: 57 (1995)
  • Ojeda Revah & Ludlow-Wiechers: 25 (1995)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera 12, species ± 400, Old and New World tropics and subtropics, widely naturalised
• Southern Africa: Genus 1 (*Agave, the largest and most widespread), species 2, naturalised

References:

• BOGLER, D.J. & SIMPSON, B.B. 1995. A chloroplast DNA study of the Agavaceae. Systematic Botany 20
• CRONQUIST, A. 1981. An integrated system of classification of flowering plants. Columbia University Press, New York
• DAHLGREN, R.M.T., CLIFFORD, H.T. & YEO, P.F. 1985. The families of the monocotyledons. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
• HERNÁNDEZ, L. 1995. Análisis cladístico de la familia Agavaceae. Boletin de la Sociedad Botánica de México 56
• OJEDA REVAH, L. & LUDLOW-WIECHERS, B. 1995. Palinología de Agavaceae, una contribución biosistemática. Boletin de la Sociedad Botánica de México 56

Resources:

• Agavaceae genus: *Agave