Families in the former Liliaceae
Nhu Nguyen (Wed, 11 Mar 2015 11:10:51 PDT)
The recent merge of the family Alliaceae and Agapanthaceae into
Amaryllidaceae (APGIII) is one that I actually agree with. For a long time,
Alliaceae moved around from Liliaceae, to Amaryllidaceae, to Alliaceae, and
now back Amaryllidaceae. The reason they moved around a lot was because
they had characters that don't quite fit into any groups. What it currently
means is that the family Amaryllidaceae is very large, with perhaps 1500
species (the genus Allium alone contained about 750 species). One of the
reasons I like this merge is because these plants can be grown in similar
ways. Most contain good and solid definitions of bulbs, and their floral
morphologies are also similar.
So Jane, you were most correct to not include Alliaceae in your book review.
Nhu
On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Jane McGary <janemcgary@earthlink.net>
wrote:
I have been informed that there is no longer a family Alliaceae, and that
genera formerly in that split of the once-upon-a-time Liliaceae are now in
the Amaryllidaceae. Is this currently correct?
Alliaceae made sense to me from the morphological viewpoint, but the
author of a book I reviewed online criticized me for thinking it had been
omitted from her list of families as a typographical error.