Nartheciaceae is a botanical name

Botanical name

A botanical name is a formal scientific name conforming to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature and, if it concerns a plant cultigen, the additional cultivar and/or Group epithets must conform to the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants...

 of a family of flowering plants. Such a family has only rarely been recognized by systems of plant taxonomy.

The APG III system

APG III system

The APG III system of flowering plant classification is the third version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy...

 does recognize such a family and places it in the order Dioscoreales

Dioscoreales

Dioscoreales is a botanical name for an order of flowering plants. Of necessity it contains the family Dioscoreaceae.In the APG II system, of 2003, this order was placed in the clade monocots and comprised the families Burmanniaceae, Dioscoreaceae and Nartheciaceae.Under the APG system of 1998,...

, in the clade monocots. As circumscribed by APG III it includes a few dozen species of herbaceous

Herbaceous

A herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaves and stems that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. They have no persistent woody stem above ground...

 plants in four or five genera, including:

• Aletris
  Aletris
  Aletris is a genus of flowering plants in the Nartheciaceae family.-External links:*...
  
  
• Lophiola
• Metanarthecium
• Narthecium
  Narthecium
  Narthecium is the botanical name of a genus of flowering plants. This genus was traditionally treated as belonging to the family Liliaceae, but the APG II system of 2003 placed it in the family Nartheciaceae....
  
  
• Nietneria

External links

• Aletris in the Flora of North America en in the Flora of China
• Aletris farinosa: pictures, description
• Lophiola in the Flora of North America and at the USDA
• Narthecium in the Flora of North America
• NCBI Taxonomy Browser
• links at CSDL, Texas
• Angiosperm Phylogeny Website