Asphodelaceae

Abstract

Small to medium sized, often succulent, herbs or occasionally large pachycaul trees with leaves arranged in terminal rosettes. Stems fibrous and woody rather than succulent. Secondary thickening growth in species of Aloe and Kniphofia. Roots slightly succulent, terete, sometimes inflated and fusiform, velamen known in some genera. Leaves dorsiventral, lanceolate-acuminate, linear or subulate, terete, often succulent and thickly conical, spirally arranged or distichous as in some species of Alooideae, amplexicaul, margins toothed, serrate or entire, sharply pointed, parallel veins often obscure. Inflorescence a raceme or panicle, peduncle usually well developed and distinct from the vegetative part of the plant, leafless or bracteate. Flowers sometimes articulated from pedicel, petaloid, undifferentiated, regular or rarely zygomorphic (bilabiate); perigone segments fleshy or rather flimsy, tepals 3 + 3, ranging from brightly coloured (red, orange, yellow) to white, variously fused into a tube or free to the base; stamens 3 + 3, inserted below the ovary; filaments free, often the same colour as the perianth, subulate, slightly filiform-flattened, rarely hairy; anthers dorsifixed or rarely basifixed (Eremurus), introrse, dehiscing longitudinally; ovary superior, trilocular, tricarpellary, syncarpous; septal nectaries present; styles distinct, single; stigma minute, Dry or rarely Wet; ovules 2-many per locule, anatropous, hemianatropous, nearly orthotropous or campylotropous, crassinucellate. Fruit a thick-walled, loculicidally dehiscent capsule, rarely (Lomatophyllum) carnose and berrylike; seeds entirely enclosed by an envelope of funicular origin, usually referred to as an aril, which has the appearance of an additional integument, irregularly angled, elongate, sometimes winged, brownish grey to black; embryo straight, linear; endosperm present.