Order 114. AMARYLLIDÀCEÆ. (Amaryllis Family.)
Chiefly bulbous and scape-bearing herbs, not scurfy or woolly, with linear flat root-leaves, and regular (or nearly so) and perfect 6-androus flowers, the tube of the corolline 6-parted perianth coherent with the 3-celled ovary; the lobes imbricated in the bud.—Anthers introrse. Style single. Capsule 3-celled, several–many-seeded. Seeds anatropous or nearly so, with a straight embryo in the axis of fleshy albumen.—An order represented in our gardens by the Narcissus, Daffodil, Snowdrop, etc., but with very few indigenous representatives in this country. Bulbs acrid. Differs from Liliaceæ chiefly in the inferior ovary.
[*] Capsule 3-valved, loculicidal; anthers versatile; perianth funnel-shaped; glabrous.
1. Zephyranthes. Flower naked in the throat; the tube short or none. Bulbs coated.
2. Hymenocallis. Flower with a slender tube and narrow recurved lobes; a cup-shaped crown connecting the stamens. Bulbs coated.
3. Agave. Flower equally 6-cleft, persistent, no crown. Fleshy-leaved, not bulbous.
[*][*] Capsule indehiscent; anthers sagittate; villous.
4. Hypoxis. Perianth 6-parted nearly down to the ovary, persistent. Bulb solid.
Perianth funnel-form, from a tubular base; the 6 divisions petal-like and similar, spreading above; the 6 stamens inserted in its naked throat; anthers versatile. Pod membranaceous, 3-lobed.—Leaves and low scape from a coated bulb. Flowers solitary from a scarious simple bract. (From ζέφυρος, a wind and ἄνθος, flower.)