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
    • Help
    • Webinars
    • Joining a Symbiota Portal
Hymenocallis
Family: Amaryllidaceae
Hymenocallis image
Paul Rothrock  
  • FNA
  • Gleason & Cronquist
  • Web Links
Gerald L. Smith & Walter S. Flory+ in Flora of North America (vol. 26)
Herbs, perennial, scapose, from bulbs. Bulb 1, ovoid or globose, tunicate, often extending into neck of clasping, distichous leaf bases. Leaves 2-16, deciduous or evergreen, sessile, rarely petiolate; blade narrowly to widely liguliform or oblanceolate, rarely ovate to elliptic. Scape: bracts 2-3, triangular, ovate, or lanceolate. Inflorescences umbellate, bracteate; each flower with subtending, often narrowly lanceolate bract. Flowers 1-16, usually sessile, erect or slightly diverging, large and starlike, fragrant; perianth connate basally into short or long tube, surmounted by conspicuous staminal corona; tepals extending from base of corona, free portions reflexed or ascending, often distally recurved, linear; stamens adnate basally into showy funnelform or rotate corona, margins between free portions of filaments often dentate or lacerate, portions of filaments inserted on margin of corona, erect to incurved, filiform; anthers versatile, introrse, pollen yellow, often golden, or orange; ovary inferior, globose, ovoid, oblong, or pyriform, ovules 2-10 per locule; style exserted beyond stamens, deflexed laterally, filiform; stigma capitate. Fruits capsular, green, subglobose to elongate, 3-locular, large, leathery. Seeds large, green, fleshy. x = 20, 23. The species of Hymenocallis are some of the most difficult to identify from herbarium specimens. Distinguishing field characteristics such as position, surface, texture, and color of the leaves, and three-dimensional shape and margin of the staminal corona, are undeterminable on most herbarium specimens. These characteristics, as observed in the field, are discussed in the treatment of each species, and distinguishing features are emphasized for their usefulness in identification. With the exception of dimensions for fruits, seeds, and some bulbs, all measurements presented are from pressed, dried specimens. Variations in habitat and distribution are also emphasized, and they are often used in the key to support character distinctions. The first eight Hymenocallis species treated here were classified by H. P. Traub (1962) in the Caroliniana Alliance. Species in this group primarily have 1-3 ovules per locule and deciduous, sessile, liguliform or oblanceolate leaves. They are distributed in northern Florida and throughout wetland areas of the southeastern United States. Species studied to date have a base chromosome number of x = 20. Hymenocallis rotata, H. godfreyi, H. puntagordensis, H. palmeri, and H. henryae (species 9-14) were all classified in Traub´s Henryae Alliance. They have distinctly larger ovaries than the species classified in Traub´s Caroliniana Alliance, having 4-8 ovules per locule, as well as coriaceous, suberect to erect, liguliform leaves. All species in the Henryae Alliance treated here occur in Florida. There is considerable chromosome diversity among these taxa, but the base number of many is x = 23. Hymenocallis latifolia is the only spider-lily in the flora that is classified in Traub´s Caribaea Alliance. Species in this alliance are characterized by sessile, liguliform, evergreen leaves. Many have 2-3 ovules per locule and a base number of x = 23. D. S. Correll and M. C. Johnston (1970) and D. S. Correll and H. B. Correll (1972) recognized three species of spider-lilies in Texas, and L. H. Shinners (1951) recognized two. We recommend a thorough investigation of Hymenocallis in Texas and adjacent states to achieve a clearer understanding of the southwestern spider-lily species. Like many other amaryllids, Hymenocallis species contain various alkaloids. It is not recommended that plant parts be eaten or even touched by allergic individuals (J. A. Bauml 1979). The precise localities of the bulb collections of Hymenocallis collected by Mary G. Henry from which Traub described numerous new species of Hymenocallis were determined from the field diaries of Mary G. Henry, courtesy of Josephine de N. Henry, President Emerita of the Henry Foundation for Botanical Research. This treatment would not have been possible without this critical information.

Vascular plants of NE US and adjacent Canada
Perianth tubular at base, with narrow elongate segments; corona conspicuous, membranous, connecting the filaments and apparently bearing the stamens on its margin; ovary inferior, with 2 ovules in each of the 3 locules; style slender, elongate; perennial scapose herbs from a coated bulb, with long, sessile basal lvs and a terminal umbel of large, white, sessile fls subtended by scarious bracts. 50, warm Amer.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
  • 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
Hymenocallis acutifolia
Image of Hymenocallis acutifolia
Hymenocallis americana
Image of Hymenocallis americana
Hymenocallis arenicola
Image of Hymenocallis arenicola
Hymenocallis bidentata
Images
not available
Hymenocallis caribaea
Image of Hymenocallis caribaea
Hymenocallis caymanensis
Images
not available
Hymenocallis choctawensis
Image of Hymenocallis choctawensis
Hymenocallis clivorum
Image of Hymenocallis clivorum
Hymenocallis collieri
Images
not available
Hymenocallis concinna
Image of Hymenocallis concinna
Hymenocallis coronaria
Image of Hymenocallis coronaria
Hymenocallis crassifolia
Image of Hymenocallis crassifolia
Hymenocallis declinata
Image of Hymenocallis declinata
Hymenocallis duvalensis
Image of Hymenocallis duvalensis
Hymenocallis expansa
Images
not available
Hymenocallis floridana
Image of Hymenocallis floridana
Hymenocallis fragrans
Images
not available
Hymenocallis franklinensis
Images
not available
Hymenocallis galvestonensis
Image of Hymenocallis galvestonensis
Hymenocallis gholsonii
Image of Hymenocallis gholsonii
Hymenocallis godfreyi
Image of Hymenocallis godfreyi
Hymenocallis graminifolia
Image of Hymenocallis graminifolia
Hymenocallis harrisiana
Image of Hymenocallis harrisiana
Hymenocallis henryae
Image of Hymenocallis henryae
Hymenocallis humilis
Image of Hymenocallis humilis
Hymenocallis imperialis
Image of Hymenocallis imperialis
Hymenocallis keyensis
Image of Hymenocallis keyensis
Hymenocallis kimballiae
Images
not available
Hymenocallis laciniata
Images
not available
Hymenocallis latifolia
Image of Hymenocallis latifolia
Hymenocallis leavenworthii
Image of Hymenocallis leavenworthii
Hymenocallis liriosme
Image of Hymenocallis liriosme
Hymenocallis littoralis
Image of Hymenocallis littoralis
Hymenocallis longibracteata
Image of Hymenocallis longibracteata
Hymenocallis moldenkiana
Images
not available
Hymenocallis occidentalis
Image of Hymenocallis occidentalis
Hymenocallis palmeri
Image of Hymenocallis palmeri
Hymenocallis pimana
Image of Hymenocallis pimana
Hymenocallis proterantha
Image of Hymenocallis proterantha
Hymenocallis punta-gordensis
Images
not available
Hymenocallis puntagordensis
Image of Hymenocallis puntagordensis
Hymenocallis pygmaea
Image of Hymenocallis pygmaea
Hymenocallis rotata
Image of Hymenocallis rotata
Hymenocallis sonorensis
Image of Hymenocallis sonorensis
Hymenocallis speciosa
Image of Hymenocallis speciosa
Hymenocallis traubii
Images
not available
Hymenocallis tridentata
Image of Hymenocallis tridentata
Hymenocallis tubiflora
Images
not available
Hymenocallis undulata
Images
not available
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)