Pollen Structure and Diversity in Liliales

Premise of research. Family relationships in the monocot order Liliales have been revised recently, so that the order now consists of 10 families of geophytes and climbers, with unusually diverse pollen morphology. Corsiaceae are sometimes placed as sister to all other Liliales, probably allied with Campynemataceae. Relationships of the wild card family Petermanniaceae are unresolved. The remaining seven families are arranged in three clades.Methodology. We use SEM and TEM to describe the pollen of representatives of all 10 families of Liliales in order to investigate pollen character evolution.Pivotal results. Liliales pollen is unusually diverse in size (10–