Thanks for the responses about this and for the helpful links. I still find books, web sites, and plant lists choosing to arrange plants by families which makes it extremely difficult for people who are not familiar with families to find what they are looking for so I thought including family information might be helpful. As Boyce indicates the important thing is finding the plant and as John says just knowing the family won't help us in knowing how to grow the plant. But as I go ahead with this I am wondering if it's worth my time. I looked at the site John suggested and I agree it's not an easy read although some of it is fascinating and would be more so if I were written in language I could understand. But it is clearly written for taxonomists not the general public. I doubt I can confidently translate it to explain some of it in language more easily understood. I asked this group for help with Arthopodium and Thysanotus. I couldn't find anywhere on the site that John mentioned the list of genera for each family. If you put Arthopodium in the search you come up empty. If you put Thysanotus you get a very long page to struggle through and eventually you find Laxmanniaceae with "14-15/178: Lomandra (50), Thysanotus (50). Predominantly Australian, also Madagascar, India, and South America." So we now have these choices for Thysanotus: Asphodelaceae, Liliaceae, Anthericaceae, Laxmanniaceae, Lomandraceae and APG 11 optional Agavaceae or Asparagaceae IPNI lists both Anthericaceae and Liliaceae; the Mobot Tropicos site suggests Liliaceae Perhaps the same choices are available for Arthropodium. IPNI lists Anthericaceae; the Mobot Tropicos site suggests Liliaceae I'm thinking either I need to abandon this project or for genera like these remove any mention of a family. Suggestions anyone? Is it helpful to have family information on the wiki? Mary Sue