lily family

American  

noun

1. the large plant family Liliaceae, characterized by chiefly herbaceous plants growing from bulbs, corms, rhizomes, or tubers, having narrow, parallel-veined, usually basal leaves, often showy flowers, and fruit in the form of a berry or capsule, and including the aloe, asparagus, aspidistra, hyacinth, numerous species of lily, lily of the valley, trillium, and tulip.

---

Example Sentences

However, Colchicum are in the lily family and not a crocus at all.

From Seattle Times • Sep. 4, 2021

Tom Croat, a specialist in the lily family at the Missouri Botanic Garden, is probably the most prolific living plant collector, with more than 100,000 specimens to his name.

From Nature • Apr. 25, 2012

And with the advent of DNA science, many plants have been reclassified; the old lily family is now split into eight or nine families, he said.

From Washington Post

Since last year, farmers in and around the tequila-producing Mexican state of Jalisco have been facing shortages of agave, the spiky-leafed member of the lily family from which the spirit is distilled.

From Time Magazine Archive

Ti, tē, n. a small Pacific tree of the lily family whose fleshy roots are eaten, and yield sugar and spirit.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 4 of 4: S-Z and supplements) by Various