Liliaceae Family Notes

This page last modified on 21 February, 2005

Until recently, the Liliaceae (Lily) family included many of the most commonly seen wildflower genera of the San Diego coastal and foothill areas.  But studies of the evolutionary ancestry of these plants have resulted in reassignment of most of those genera to families found in the following list:

• Agavaceae
• Alliaceae
• Asparagaceae
• Asphodelaceae
• Convallariaceae
• Hostaceae
• Hyacinthaceae
• Melanthiaceae
• Nolinaceae
• Themidaceae

Families in this list which are not shown as hypertext links to other pages correspond to species for which I don't yet have any photographs on this website.

A readily accessible summary of these changes may be found in the article Consider The Lilies by Dean G. Kelch in the journal Fremontia, vol 30 #2, April 2002 published by the California Native Plant Society - available online at
    http://www.cnps.org/publications/publications.htm#fremontia
This article also lists several other families which are not found in San Diego county.