Editing Scilloideae (section)

=== Early classifications ===

Detailed historical accounts of taxonomic issues relating to the modern subfamily Scilloideae have been provided by Pfosser & Speta (1999)<ref name=PfosSpet99/> and Chase et al. (2009).<ref name=ChasReveFay09/> The [[lilioid monocots]] have long created classification problems. At one extreme, e.g. in the [[Cronquist system]] of 1968, they have been regarded as one large family ([[Liliaceae]] ''[[sensu lato]]''). At the other extreme, e.g. in the [[Dahlgren system]] of 1985, they have been divided between orders and split into many often small families. Dahlgren divided the lilioid monocots in search of [[monophyly]], but in practice he was unsuccessful. His major contribution was to split the Liliaceae into two families, the true Liliaceae, Liliaceae ''sensu stricto'', and the Hyacinthaceae (families which are now placed in separate orders, [[Liliales]] and [[Asparagales]]).{{citation needed|date=January 2023}}

Splitting off the Hyacinthaceae from the Liliaceae was originally suggested by [[Batsch]] in 1786.<ref name=Bats86/> Batsch's version of the family only superficially resembles the modern version, but did include ''[[Hyacinth (plant)|Hyacinth]]us'' and ''[[Lachenalia]]''. The group was reduced to a tribe by [[Endlicher]] in 1836, and included ''[[Camassia]]''. In 1866 [[Edward James Salisbury|Salisbury]] redistributed the genera into several families.<ref name=Sali66/>
In the 1870s, [[John Gilbert Baker|Baker]] used tribes to divide up the Liliaceae ''[[sensu lato|s.l.]]''. introducing the Hyacintheae, Scilleae, Massonieae, and Chlorogaleae.<ref name=Bake70/> In 1887 [[Adolf Engler|Engler]] divided the Liliaceae ''s.l.'' into two tribes, Lilieaoe and Scilleae.<ref name=Engl87/> In the twentieth century, [[Karl Fritsch|Fritsch]] proposed the division of Liliaceae ''s.l.'' into smaller more homogeneous families.<ref name=Frit32/> In the 1930s the Viennese school elevated Engler's tribes to subfamilies.<ref name=Krau30/> They questioned the inclusion of such different groups as Lilioideae and Scilloideae within the same family, and even Scilloideae was considered to be composed of at least three groups.<ref name=Buch49/> By 1969, [[Herbert Huber (botanist)|Huber]] was recognizing the Scilloideae as the family Hyacinthaceae, and dividing it into tribes.<ref name=Hube69/> How many tribes were recognised and how the genera were distributed within those tribes depended on the diagnostic characters chosen. Huber used seeds, while Schulze in 1980 used pollen.<ref name=Schu80/> Morphology and chromosome analysis were supplemented by chemotaxonomy, due to the presence of cardiac steroids, such as the bufadienolids in the Urgineoideae and cardenolids in Ornithogaloideae. Even [[Carl Linnaeus|Linnaean]] genera such as ''Hyacinthus'', ''Scilla'' and ''Ornithoglum'' proved heterogeneous and characters useful in other families failed to define satisfactory taxa.{{citation needed|date=March 2013}}