Log In New Account Sitemap
  • Home
  • Specimen Search
    • Search Collections
    • Map Search
    • Exsiccati Search
  • Images
    • Image Browser
    • Search Images
  • Flora Projects
    • Arizona
    • New Mexico
    • Colorado Plateau
    • Plant Atlas of Arizona (PAPAZ)
    • Sonoran Desert
    • Teaching Checklists
  • Agency Floras
    • NPS - Intermountain
    • USFWS - Region 2
    • BLM Flora
    • Coronado NF
  • Dynamic Floras
    • Dynamic Checklist
    • Dynamic Key
  • Additional Websites
    • New Mexico Flores
    • Plant Atlas Project of Arizona (PAPAZ)
    • Southwest Colorado Wildflowers
    • Vascular Plants of the Gila Wilderness
    • Consortium of Midwest Herbaria
    • Consortium of Southern Rocky Mountain Herbaria
    • Intermountain Region Herbaria Network (IRHN)
    • Mid-Atlantic Herbaria
    • North American Network of Small Herbaria (NANSH)
    • Northern Great Plains Herbaria
    • Red de Herbarios del Noroeste de México (northern Mexico)
    • SERNEC - Southeastern USA
    • Texas Oklahoma Regional Consortium of Herbaria (TORCH)
  • Resources
    • CCH2 User Guide
    • Video Tutorials
    • Contributing Specimens
Asparagaceae
Asparagaceae image
Ries Lindley  
  • FNA
  • VPAP
  • SW Field Guide
  • Web Links
Susan Verhoek & William J. Hess in Flora of North America (vol. 26)
Plants usually perennial, occasionally epiphytic, sometimes monocarpic or polycarpic, monoecious, dioecious, or polygamodioecious, small to gigantic, sometimes arborescent, usually scapose. Stems subterranean or aboveground, sometimes branched. Leaves simple, annual or long-lived, in terminal rosettes or occasionally cauline, sessile or occasionally pseudo-petiolate; blade linear, lanceolate, oblanceolate, ovate, or elliptic, fibrous, thin and flexible, thick and rigid or succulent, or fibrous, often glaucous, margins entire, serrulate, dentate, denticulate, corneous, or filiferous, apex rigid or flexible, sometimes pungent, often with short or long spine. Inflorescences terminal or axillary spikes, racemose or paniculate, sometimes umbellate, bracteate, often huge; bracts ascending or erect, occasionally reflexed, leaflike proximally, scalelike distally. Flowers 6-merous, bisexual or functionally unisexual; perianth of 2 similar petallike whorls, semisucculent; tepals distinct or connate into tube, apex glandular or glandular-pubescent; stamens included or exserted; filaments often broadened and succulent, glabrous, pubescent, or papillose; anthers versatile, dehiscence longitudinal; ovary superior or inferior, 3-locular or occasionally 1-locular, 3-angled, ovoid, or cylindrical, with axillary or rarely parietal placentation; style included or exserted; stigmas 1 or 3, 3-lobed or capitate; pedicel usually distinct, articulate or not, rarely absent. Fruits occasionally baccate, usually capsular and sometimes winged or lobed, or indehiscent and dry or fleshy. Seeds 1-3(-many) per locule, flattened, 3-angled, hemispheric, ovoid, obovoid, or globose. There is little agreement on the treatment of Agavaceae. The group containing Agave, Yucca, Furcraea, Hesperaloe, and Manfreda generally has been accepted as the core of Agavaceae, or as subfamilies Agavoideae and Yuccoideae, but treatment of Dracaena, Sansevieria, Cordyline, Nolina, and Dasylirion has been varied. A. L. Takhtajan (1987) and R. F. Thorne (1992b) placed these genera in Dracaenaceae but treated them at different levels. Takhtajan located them in the subfamily Dracaenoideae within sections Nolineae (Nolina and Dasylirion), Sansevierieae (Sansevieria), and Dracaeneae (Cordyline and Dracaena). Thorne, on the other hand, placed these same groupings at the subfamily level. R. M. T. Dahlgren et al. (1985) recognized them as separate families, Nolinaceae (Nolina and Dasylirion), Dracaenaceae (Sansevieria and Dracaena), and Asteliaceae (Cordyline), in addition to the Agavaceae (Yucca, Hesperaloe, Agave, Manfreda, and Furcraea). A. Cronquist (1981) based his broadly circumscribed Agavaceae on a common xerophytic habit. However, the karyotype of 5 long and 25 short chromosomes for the Agavoideae and Yuccoideae is distinct from the karyotypes of the other subfamilies that Cronquist included in the Agavaceae. Current research on the phylogenetics of moncotyledons, using DNA sequences of rbcL, support the separation of Dracaena, Nolina, and Dasylirion from Agavaceae (M. R. Duvall et al. 1993b). We believe that a broad interpretation of the Agavaceae unites groups that should be recognized as separate. Many genera in Agavaceae are economically important. All genera in the Agavoideae and Yuccoideae contain steroidal sapogenins; some have been used in folk medicine, and locally and commercially as soap (G. Blunden et al. 1978; S. E. Verhoek 1978; M. Wall et al. 1957). They provide fibers for cordage, baskets, and hats, as well as food and drink for many indigenous peoples of the southwestern United States (H. S. Gentry 1982). They are also used as commercial fiber and beverage crops in Latin America and the Old World (H. Brucher 1989). In the southern United States, some species in each genus are cultivated and represented in the flora, and at least one species of Yucca is now grown as far north as Canada. Collectors should record the uses of these plants in their notes along with the critical information on plant habit and morphology. Photographs are often important tools for the identification of these plants, and, with the advent of digital cameras, are now much easier to obtain and process.

JANAS 32(1)
PLANT: Trees, shrubs, or perennial herbs, monocarpic (flowering once and then dying) or polycarpic (flowering more than once). LEAVES: alternate, simple, sessile, tending to be crowded in dense rosettes at end of a caudex or at ends of branches, the margins entire or toothed or filiferous. INFLORESCENCE: axillary or terminal, open, racemose, paniculate or spicate. FLOWERS: usually perfect, actinomorphic to slightly zygomorphic; tepals 6 in 2 whorls, petaloid, often thick and fleshy, distinct or fused below into a floral tube; stamens 6, distinct, adnate to tepal bases or floral tube, the anthers usually dorsifixed, introrse; pistil 3-carpeled, 3-loculed; ovary superior or inferior, usually with basal nectaries; style 1, usually terminal; stigma capitate, 3-lobed; ovules axile, 1-many per locule. FRUITS: loculicidal or septicidal capsules or indehiscent, dry and spongy or baccate. SEEDS: flattened, with endosperm. x = 30 (characteristic size pattern of 5 large and 25 small to medium). NOTES: 8 genera, ca 360 spp., chiefly subtropical, semi-arid and arid regions. Agavaceae are of considerable economic importance, providing cordage, food, alcoholic beverages, detergents, insect repellants, perfumes, and ornamentals. REFERENCES: Hodgson, Wendy. 1999. Agavaceae. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. 32(1).

Asparagaceae s.l. (sensu lato) is a broadly distinguished family that includes the former families of Asparagaceae, Agavaceae, Hycinthaceae, and Ruscaceae. There is a difficulty in distinguishing many synapomorphies for the clade, with only some seed characters holding them together morphologically. The phylogenetic studies justify the entire clade as this larger circumscription, but it is difficult to distinguish among the subfamilies because of the lack of morphological characters. Pay attention to some of the regional representatives of Agavoideae, and Nolinoideae and what characters hold them together (i.e. basal rosettes, generally fleshy, 6 tepals and stamens).

Mostly shrubs or large rosettes with alternate or all basal leaves fibrous to succulent, alternate or spiral in rosettes or along stem, simple, sheathing. Stem usually a caudex, bulb, or arborescent, often with anomalous secondary growth. Inflorescences racemes, spikes or panicles, 3 sepals, often petaloid (6 tepals), 3 distinct or connate petals, Indeterminate to determinate inflorescence, terminal or axillary, often massive, many monocarpic, some with pups (Agave spp.). Perianth a fused hypanthium, bisexual or perfect, radial to bilateral and usually small, tepals 6, distinct to connate, petaloid, stamens 6, can be epipetalous. Gyonecium of 3 connate carpels, superior to inferior ovary with 3 locules and 1-many ovules per locule, axile placentation and septal nectaries. Fruit a loculicidal capsule to berry, some with phytomelan, some without. 

  • Encyclopedia of Life
  • W3Tropicos
  • USDA PLANTS Database
  • Flora of North America
  • International Plant Names Index
  • Google Search Engine
  • Google Images
  • BOLD Systems - Barcode of Life Data Systems
  • Global Biotic Interactions (GloBI)
  • NCBI - National Center for Biotechnology Information
Show all taxa || << 1 - 50 taxa >>
Acanthocarpus preissii
Images
not available
Agave acuispina
Images
not available
Agave aktites
Image of Agave aktites
Agave albicans
Image of Agave albicans
Agave albomarginata
Image of Agave albomarginata
Agave americana
Image of Agave americana
Agave angustiarum
Image of Agave angustiarum
Agave angustifolia
Image of Agave angustifolia
Agave angustifolia x vilmoriniana
Images
not available
Agave angustissima
Images
not available
Agave antillarum
Image of Agave antillarum
Agave apedicellata
Images
not available
Agave applanata
Image of Agave applanata
Agave asperrima
Image of Agave asperrima
Agave atrovirens
Image of Agave atrovirens
Agave attenuata
Image of Agave attenuata
Agave aurea
Image of Agave aurea
Agave avellanidens
Image of Agave avellanidens
Agave azurea
Image of Agave azurea
Agave bahamana
Images
not available
Agave bakeri
Images
not available
Agave bovicornuta
Image of Agave bovicornuta
Agave braceana
Image of Agave braceana
Agave bracteosa
Image of Agave bracteosa
Agave brandegeei
Images
not available
Agave breedlovei
Image of Agave breedlovei
Agave brevipetala
Image of Agave brevipetala
Agave brevispina
Image of Agave brevispina
Agave bulliana
Images
not available
Agave cacozela
Image of Agave cacozela
Agave caeciliana
Image of Agave caeciliana
Agave cantala
Image of Agave cantala
Agave capensis
Image of Agave capensis
Agave carminis
Image of Agave carminis
Agave celsii
Image of Agave celsii
Agave cerulata
Image of Agave cerulata
Agave chiapensis
Image of Agave chiapensis
Agave chihuahuana
Image of Agave chihuahuana
Agave chisosensis
Images
not available
Agave chrysantha
Image of Agave chrysantha
Agave chrysoglossa
Image of Agave chrysoglossa
Agave coetocapnia
Image of Agave coetocapnia
Agave colimana
Image of Agave colimana
Agave collina
Image of Agave collina
Agave colorata
Image of Agave colorata
Agave compacta
Image of Agave compacta
Agave confertiflora
Image of Agave confertiflora
Agave congesta
Image of Agave congesta
Agave convallis
Image of Agave convallis
Agave costaricana
Image of Agave costaricana
The National Science Foundation
Developments of SEINet, Symbiota, and associated specimen databases have been supported by National Science Foundation Grants (DBI 9983132, BRC 0237418, DBI 0743827, DBI 0847966)