Liiioideae.—Bulbous plants with a terminal racemose inflor escence ; the anthers open introrsely and the capsule is loculicidal. It contains about 3o genera, several being represented in Britain. The typical genus Lilium and Fritillaria are widely distributed in the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere; F. meleagris, snake's head, is found in moist meadows in some of the southern and central English counties; Tulipa contains about 5o species in Europe and temperate Asia, and is specially abundant in the dry districts of central Asia; Lloydia, a small, slender alpine plant, widely distributed in the northern hemisphere, occurs on Snowdon in Wales; Scala (squill) is a large genus, chiefly in Europe and Asia—S. nutans is the blue-bell or wild hyacinth ; Ornithogalum (Europe, Africa and west Asia) is closely allied to Scilla—O. umbellatum, star of Bethlehem, is naturalized in Britain; Hya cinthus and Muscari are chiefly Mediterranean ; M. racemosum, grape hyacinth, occurs in sandy pastures in the eastern counties of England. To this group belong a number of tropical and especially South African genera, such as Albuca, Urginea, Drimia, Lachenalia and others.
Dracaenoideae.—The plants generally have an erect stem with a crown of leaves which are often leathery; the anthers open in trorsely and the fruit is a berry or capsule. It contains a small number of genera, several of which, such as Yucca, Dracaena and Cordyline include arborescent species in which the stem increases in thickness continually by a centrifugal formation of new tissue; an extreme case is afforded by Dracaena Draco, the dragon-tree of Teneriffe. Yucca and several allied genera are natives of the dry country of the southern and western United States and of Central America. Dracaena and the allied genus Cordyline occur in the warmer regions of the Old World.
Asparagoideae.—Plants growing from a rhizome; fruit a berry. Asparagus contains about 120 species in the dryer, warmer parts of the Old World ; it has a short creeping rhizome, from which springs a slender, herbaceous or woody, often very much branched, erect or climbing stem, the ultimate branches of which are flattened or needle-like, leaf-like structures (cladodes), the true leaves being reduced to scales or, in the climbers, forming short, hard, more or less recurved spines. Ruscus aculeatus is butcher's broom, an evergreen shrub with flattened leaf-like cladodes, native of the southerly portion of England and Wales; the small flowers are unisexual and borne on the face of the cladode ; the male contains three stamens, the filaments of which are united to form a short stout column on which are seated the diverging cells of the anthers ; in the female the ovary is enveloped by a fleshy staminal tube on which are borne three barren anthers. Poly
gonatum and Maianthemum are allied genera with a herbaceous leafy stem and, in the former axillary flowers, in the latter flowers in a terminal raceme; both occur rarely in woods in Britain; P. multiflorum is the well-known Solomon's seal of gardens, so called from the seal-like scars on the rhizome of stems of previous sea sons, the hanging flowers of which contain no honey, but are visited by bees for the pollen. Convallaria is lily of the valley; Aspidistra, native of the Himalayas, China and Japan, is a well known pot plant ; its flowers depart from the normal arrangement of the family in having the parts in fours (tetramerous). Paris, including the British Herb Paris (P. quadrifolia), has solitary tetra- to poly-merous flowers terminating the short annual shoot which bears a whorl of four or more leaves below the flower; in this and in some species of the nearly allied genus Trillium (chiefly temperate North America) the flowers have a fetid smell, which together with the dark purple of the ovary and stigmas and fre quently also of the stamens and petals, attracts carrion-loving flies, which alight on the stigma and then climb the anthers and become dusted with pollen; the pollen is then carried to the stigmas of another flower.
Luzuriagoideae are shrubs or undershrubs with erect or climb ing branches and fruit a berry. Lapageria, a native of Chile, is a favourite greenhouse climber with fine bell-shaped flowers.
Smilacoideae are climbing shrubs with broad net-veined leaves and small dioecious flowers in umbels springing from the leaf axils ; the fruit is a berry. They climb by means of tendrils, which are stipular structures arising from the leaf-sheath.. Smilax is a characteristic tropical genus containing about 2 10 species; the dried roots of some species are the drug sarsaparilla.
The two tribes Ophiopogonoideae and Aletroideae are sometimes removed from the Liliaceae and placed in the family, Haemo doraceae. The plants have a short rhizome and narrow or lanceo late basal leaves ; and they are characterized by the ovary being often half-inferior. They contain a few genera chiefly old world tropical and subtropical. The leaves of species of Sansevieria yield a valuable fibre and the tubers of Ophiopogon japonicus are edible.