Liliaceæ

Liliaceæ, a natural order of endogenous plants, containing about 1200 known species. They are most numerous in the warmer parts of the temperate zones. They are mostly herbaceous plants, with bulbous or tuberous, sometimes fibrous roots; rarely shrubs or trees. The shrubby and arborescent species are mostly tropical. The stem is simple, or branching towards the top, leafless or leafy. The leaves are simple, generally narrow, sometimes cylindrical, sometimes fistular. The flowers are generally large, with six-cleft or six-toothed perianth, and grow singly or in spikes, racemes, umbels, heads, or panicles. The stamens are six, opposite to the segments of the perianth; the pistil has a superior three-celled, many-seeded ovary, and a single style. The fruit is succulent or capsular; the seeds packed one upon another in two rows. This order contains many of our finest garden, greenhouse, and hothouse flowers, as lilies, tulips, dog's-tooth violet, lily of the valley, tuberoze, crown imperial and other fritillaries, hyacinths, Gloriosa superba; many species useful for food, as garlic, onion, leek, and other species of Allium, asparagus, the Quamash or Biscuit Root (Camassia esculenta) of North America, the Ti (Dracaena terminalis or Cordylone Ti) of the South Seas, &c.; many species valuable in medicine, as squill, aloes, &c.; and some valuable for the fibre which their leaves yield, as New Zealand Flax, and the species of Bowstring Hemp or Sansevieria.—This natural order has been the subject of a number of splendid works, such as Redoute's Lcs Liliacées (8 vols. Paris, 1802–16).