Agapanthaceae
Encyclopedia
Agapanthoideae is a monocot subfamily of flowering plants in the family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Amaryllidaceae
Amaryllidaceae
Amaryllidoideae is the subfamily of flowering plants that takes its name from the genus Amaryllis. It is part of the family Amaryllidaceae, in order Asparagales...

, order
Order (biology)
In scientific classification used in biology, the order is# a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family...

 Asparagales
Asparagales
Asparagales is the name of an order of plants, used in modern classification systems such as the APG III system . The order takes its name from the family Asparagaceae and is placed in the monocots. The order has only recently been recognized in classification systems...

. It was formerly treated as a separate family, Agapanthaceae. The subfamily name is derived from the generic name
Binomial nomenclature
Binomial nomenclature is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, although they can be based on words from other languages...

 of the sole included type
Biological type
In biology, a type is one particular specimen of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached...

 genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

, Agapanthus
Agapanthus
Agapanthus is the only genus in the subfamily Agapanthoideae of the flowering plant family Amaryllidaceae. The family is in the monocot order Asparagales....

. Previously the genus Agapanthus has also been included in the Alliaceae
Alliaceae
Allioideae is the botanical name of a monocot subfamily of flowering plants in the family Amaryllidaceae, order Asparagales. It was formerly treated as a separate family, Alliaceae...

 (e.g. in the Dahlgren system
Dahlgren system
One of the modern systems of plant taxonomy, the Dahlgren system was published by monocot specialist Rolf Dahlgren. His wife Gertrud Dahlgren carried on after his death.According to the extensive listing by Professor Reveal One of the modern systems of plant taxonomy, the Dahlgren system was...

) or the Liliaceae
Liliaceae
The Liliaceae, or the lily family, is a family of monocotyledons in the order Liliales. Plants in this family have linear leaves, mostly with parallel veins but with several having net venation , and flower arranged in threes. Several have bulbs, while others have rhizomes...

 (e.g. in the Cronquist system
Cronquist system
The Cronquist system is a taxonomic classification system of flowering plants. It was developed by Arthur Cronquist in his texts An Integrated System of Classification of Flowering Plants and The Evolution and Classification of Flowering Plants .Cronquist's system places flowering plants into two...

, which unlike most classification systems included both Alliaceae and Amaryllidaceae in a broadly defined Liliaceae).

Agapanthus shares characters with other genera included in the modern Amaryllidaceae, but lacks the compounds that give alliaceous plants (subfamily Allioideae) their characteristic onion or garlic odor, and has superior ovaries, unlike the usually inferior ovaries of subfamily Amaryllidoideae.

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