Narthecium
Encyclopedia
Narthecium is the 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 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...

 of flowering plants. This genus was traditionally treated as belonging to the family 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...

, but the APG II system
APG II system
The APG II system of plant classification is the second, now obsolete, version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy that was published in April 2003 by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group. It was a revision of the first APG system, published in 1998, and was superseded in 2009...

 of 2003 placed it in the family Nartheciaceae
Nartheciaceae
Nartheciaceae is a botanical name of a family of flowering plants. Such a family has only rarely been recognized by systems of plant taxonomy.The APG III system does recognize such a family and places it in the order Dioscoreales, in the clade monocots...

.

The global distribution of the genus is widely disjunct - 1 species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 in Asia, 1-5 species in Europe (see Narthecium ossifragum and 2 species in North America. Narthecium americanum is presently a candidate for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act in the United States.
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