Brodiaeoideae are a monocot subfamily of flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae, order Asparagales. They have been treated as a separate family, Themidaceae. They are native to Central America and western North America, from British Columbia to Guatemala.Ole Seberg. 2007. "Themidaceae" page 404. In: Vernon H. Heywood, Richard K. Brummitt, Ole Seberg, and Alastair Culham. Flowering Plant Families of the World. Firefly Books: Ontario, Canada. The name of the subfamily is based on the type genus Brodiaea.

In molecular phylogenetic analyses, Brodiaeoideae is strongly supported as monophyletic. It is probably sister to Scilloideae. Recent treatments have divided Brodiaeoideae (or Themidaceae) into 12 genera.Knud Rahn. 1998. "Themidaceae" pages 436-441. In: Klaus Kubitzki (general editor) with Klaus Kubitzki, Herbert F.J. Huber, Paula J. Rudall, Peter F. Stevens, and Thomas Stützel (volume editors). The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants volume III. Springer-Verlag: Berlin;Heidelberg, Germany. The monophyly of several of the genera remains in doubt. As currently circumscribed, the largest genera are Triteleia, with 15 species, and Brodiaea, with 14.Flora of North America Editorial Committee. 2002. Flora of North America volume 26:321-347. Oxford University Press. . see External links below. Nine of the 12 genera are known in cultivation, but only species of Brodiaea and Triteleia are commonly grown.Anthony Huxley, Mark Griffiths, and Margot Levy (1992). The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening. The Macmillan Press, Limited: London. The Stockton Press: New York. (set).

Description The following description is derived from two sources.Armen L. Takhtajan (Takhtadzhian). Flowering Plants second edition (2009). Springer Science+Business Media. .

Perennial herbs arising from a starchy corm; a new corm arising each year from the old one.

Leaves linear, often fleshy, forming a closed sheath at their base. Veins parallel.

Inflorescence an umbel, or rarely a single flower, at the apex of a solitary scape. Flowers bisexual, actinomorphic. Tepals all similar, in 2 whorls of 3.

Fertile stamens 6, or 3 and alternating with 3 staminodes. Stamens and staminodes inserted on tepals. Anthers basifixed and introrse.

Ovary superior and trilocular.

Fruit a loculicidal capsule. Seed covered with phytomelan.

History For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, when the group was recognized at all, it was usually at tribal rank and usually called Brodiaeeae. Most authors assigned it to Liliaceae, Alliaceae, or Amaryllidaceae. In 1985, Dahlgren, Clifford, and Yeo treated it as tribe Brodiaeeae of Alliaceae.Rolf M.T. Dahlgren, H. Trevor Clifford, and Peter F. Yeo. 1985. The Families of the Monocotyledons. Springer-Verlag: Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, Tokyo. . .

Toward the end of the 20th century, it became increasingly evident that the heterogeneous Liliaceae recognized by most authors was several times polyphyletic and that Brodiaea and its relatives were closer to Asparagus than to Allium or Amaryllis. For these reasons, the family Themidaceae was resurrected in an article in Taxon in 1996. The name 'Themidaceae' was first used by Richard Salisbury in 1866.Richard Salisbury. 1866. The Genera of Plants. A Fragment Containing Part of Liriogamae:84. John van Voorst: Paternoster Row, London, England. (see External links below). The name was based on the now-defunct genus Themis, which was established by Salisbury along with the family. The only species ever assigned to Themis was Themis ixioides. Its name was changed to Brodiaea ixioides by Sereno Watson in 1879, then to Triteleia ixioides by Edward Lee Greene in 1886.Edward Lee Greene. 1886. "Some Genera Which have been Confused Under the Name Brodiaea". In: Bulletin of the California Academy of Sciences 2(6):142. (see External links below). It is known as Triteleia ixioides in Flora of North America.Triteleia ixioides in Flora of North America @ efloras.org. (n.d.). Retrieved June 18, 2024, from http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=242102031

When the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group published the APG II system in 2003, Themidaceae was treated as an optional circumscription for those who thought that Asparagaceae sensu lato should be divided into smaller segregate families. When the APG III system was published in 2009, Themidaceae was not accepted. In an accompanying article, it was treated as Brodiaeoideae, one of 7 subfamilies in Asparagaceae.

Genera 11 genera were included in the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website . Since then, two additional genera, Dipterostemon and Xochiquetzallia, have been recognized. As of 2026, Brodiaeoideae consists of the following 13 genera:

Androstephium Torr. Bessera Schult.f. (including Behria) Bloomeria Kellogg Brodiaea Sm. Dandya H.E.Moore Dichelostemma Kunth (including Brevoortia, Stropholirion) Dipterostemon Milla Cav. (including Diphalangium) Muilla S.Watson ex Benth. Petronymphe H.E.Moore Triteleia Douglas ex Lindl. (including Hesperoscordium, Themis) Triteleiopsis Hoover Xochiquetzallia J.Gut

References

Bibliography

External links

Brodiaeoideae At: Angiosperm Phylogeny Website At: Missouri Botanical Garden Website Liliaceae At: Flora of North America At: eFloras A fragment containing Liriogamae At: Resurrection of Themidaceae NCBI Taxonomy Browser