Q.Give an account of family Liliaceae.

[!TLDR] Liliaceae (Monocotyledonae, series Coronariae) is a bulbous/rhizomatous perennial-herb family with parallel-veined sheathing leaves, a trimerous perianth of 6 tepals, 6 stamens, and a tricarpellary syncarpous superior trilocular ovary; economically important as food (onion, garlic), medicine (colchicine) and ornamentals (tulip, lily). [!ANSWER] Family Liliaceae is diagnosed by underground bulbs/rhizomes/corms, parallel venation, a trimerous perianth of six tepals in two whorls, six dithecous introrse stamens, and a tricarpellary syncarpous superior trilocular ovary with axile placentation.

[!ANSWER] Family Liliaceae, placed under the class Monocotyledonae and series Coronariae, is diagnosed by its perennial bulbous/rhizomatous habit, parallel-veined sheathing leaves, a trimerous perianth of six petaloid tepals, six stamens with dithecous introrse anthers, and a tricarpellary, syncarpous, superior, trilocular ovary.

Habit and Habitat

Members are mostly perennial herbs, frequently bearing underground storage and perennating organs such as bulbs, rhizomes, or corms - the onion bulb is the everyday example.

Root

The root system is adventitious, arising from the base of the stem, and is fibrous or, in some members, fleshy.

Stem

The stem proper is often reduced to a short underground portion from which the bulb or corm forms, though an aerial flowering stalk (scape) may arise from it.

Leaf

The leaf is usually simple, shows parallel venation typical of monocots, and has a sheathing base wrapping around the stem.

Inflorescence

The inflorescence may be a raceme, an umbellate cyme (as in onion), or a solitary flower.

Flower

The flower is bisexual, actinomorphic, and trimerous, its parts arranged in threes.

Perianth

Since the calyx and corolla are not clearly differentiated, the outer whorls are together described as a perianth of six similar, petaloid tepals arranged in two whorls of three, often fused at the base.

Androecium

There are six stamens in two whorls of three, matching the two perianth whorls; the anthers are dithecous, basifixed, introrse, and dehisce longitudinally.

Gynoecium

The gynoecium is tricarpellary and syncarpous (three carpels fused into one compound pistil), with a superior, trilocular ovary and axile placentation, the ovules attached to a central column where the three carpel walls meet.

Pollination

Pollination is mostly entomophilous.

Fruit

The fruit is typically a capsule, occasionally a berry.

Economic Importance

Liliaceae is economically significant across several categories: as edible plants it gives onion (Allium cepa) and garlic (Allium sativum); as medicine, Colchicum autumnale yields colchicine, valuable both medically and in genetics/plant breeding for inducing chromosome doubling; the family also contains fibre-yielding members; and as ornamentals it gives some of the most widely grown garden and cut flowers, notably tulip and lily. Allium cepa is the family's representative example, showing the characteristic bulb habit, sheathing parallel-veined leaves, and trimerous flower with six dithecous, basifixed, introrse anthers described above.

[!ANSWER] Family Liliaceae is diagnosed by its bulbous perennial habit, parallel-veined sheathing leaves, trimerous six-tepal perianth, six dithecous introrse stamens, and a tricarpellary syncarpous superior trilocular ovary, and it is economically important for food, medicine, and ornamentals.

• Describing the flower as pentamerous (the dicot condition) instead of the correct trimerous monocot condition.
• Calling the perianth 'calyx and corolla' instead of using the correct term perianth/tepals, since the two whorls are not distinguishable in this family.
• Forgetting the gynoecium is tricarpellary/trilocular (three), not bicarpellary/bilocular (two, the Solanaceae condition).