Description:

• Perennial herbs, often forming colonies, glabrous, glossy, rich in saponins; with a cylindrical, branched rhizome bearing copious fleshy roots
• Leaves evergreen or deciduous, distichous, numerous, linear, smooth, firm, acute, entire
• Flowers bisexual, regular, arranged in a central umbel on a long, naked, stout peduncle, produced above leaves, usually very many and showy, deep to light blue or white, chartaceous, persistent; pedicels firm, erect, spreading or cernuous
• Perianth cylindric to campanulate, forming a short or long tube, deciduous, splitting sideways; segments 3 + 3; outer 3 usually narrower than inner ones, often slightly hooded, erect or spreading
• Stamens 3 + 3, arising from within perianth tube, loosely connivent, declinate, shorter or longer than perianth segments, somewhat unequal; anthers 2-thecous, small, versatile, dorsifixed, introrse
• Ovary superior, ovoid or oblong, 3-locular, with many axile ovules; style filiform, semipersistent; stigma apical, small
• Capsule ovoid to fusiform, loculicidally dehiscent
• Seeds flat, ovate, winged, black, shiny
• x = 15

Classification Notes:

• Fay & Chase: 449 (1996) transferred Agapanthus from Alliaceae to Amaryllidaceae as Agapanthoideae
• Here it is placed as a sister family to the Amaryllidaceae, mainly based on the superior ovary, presence of saponins and absence of amaryllid alkaloids

Nomenclature:

• Agapanthaceae
  • Lotsy: 732 (1911)
  • Fay & Chase: 441 (1996)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Monotypic: Agapanthus L'Hér., endemic to southern Africa

References:

• FAY, M..F. & CHASE, M.W. 1996. Resurrection of Themidaceae for the Brodiaea alliance, and recircumscription of Alliaceae, Amaryllidaceae and Agapanthoideae. Taxon 45
• LOTSY, J.P. 1911. Vorträge über botanische Stammesgeschichte. Cormophyta Siphonogamia. Vol 3. G. Fischer, Jena

Resources:

• Agapanthaceae genus: Agapanthus