The flowers in this family are _hypogynous_ and have in part the general monocotyledonous type with 5 trimerous whorls completely developed in a regular hermaphrodite flower, and in part the flowers so much reduced that the type is very difficult to trace. On the one hand the family is well developed and has capitate inflorescences (_Eriocaulaceæ_) and on the other hand it is distinctly reduced (_Centrolepidaceceæ_). This family has taken its name from the fact that the ovule is not, as in the Liliifloræ and nearly all other Monocotyledons, anatropous, but _orthotropous_, so that the embryo (βλάστη) becomes placed _at the end of the seed opposite_ (ἐναντίος) _to the hilum_. Large, mealy endosperm.--The orders belonging to this family are by certain authors grouped with the _Bromeliaceæ_ and _Pontederiaceæ_, etc., into one family, FARINOSEÆ, so named on account of the mealy endosperm, the distinguishing character of the Liliifloræ then being that the endosperm is fleshy and horny. Order 1. =Commelinaceæ.= The complete Liliaceous structure without great reductions in the number of whorls, but with generally few ovules in each loculus of the ovary, is found in the Commelinaceæ, an almost exclusively tropical order with about 317 species; herbs, some of which are introduced into our gardens and greenhouses. The stems are nodose; the leaves often _clasping_; the flowers are arranged in unipared scorpioid cymes, often so that they form a zig-zag series falling in the median line of the bracts, and after flowering they bend regularly to the right or left, outwards or inwards. They are more or less _zygomorphic_, particularly in the stamens, which in the same flower are of different forms or partially suppressed. The outer series of the _perianth_ is sepaloid, the inner petaloid, generally violet or blue; the filaments are sometimes clothed with hairs formed of rows of bead-like cells (well known for showing protoplasmic movements). Fruit a trilocular _capsule_ with loculicidal dehiscence (generally few-seeded); in some a nut. The radicle is covered by an external, warty, projecting covering which is cast off on germination.--The abundant raphides lie in elongated cells whose transverse walls they perforate.--_Commelina, Tradescantia, Tinantia, Cyanotis, Dichorisandra_. Order 2. =Mayacaceæ.= This order is closely allied to the Commelinaceæ. 7 species. American marsh- or water-plants. In many of the following orders of this family the flowers are united into compound inflorescences, with which is accompanied a reduction in the flower. Order 3. =Xyridaceæ= (50 species). Marsh-plants with radical, often equitant leaves arranged in 2 rows, and short spikes on long (twisted) stalks. The flowers, as in the Commelinaceæ, have sepals (which however are more chaffy) and petals, but the outer series of stamens is wanting. Capsule (generally many-seeded).