See text Gilliesieae is a tribe of herbaceous geophyte plants belonging to the subfamily Allioideae of the Amaryllis family (Amaryllidaceae).

It is native to the Southern United States, Central and South America, predominantly Chile.

Of the three tribes of genera that make up the subfamily Allioideae, Gilliesieae is the largest and most variable.

Gilliesieae are perennial herbaceous geophytes characterised by simple or prolific bulbs, sometimes with lateral rhizomes.

Gilliesiae is distinguished from Leucocoryneae by zygomorphic floral symmetry and the absence of septal nectaries.

The outer bulb scales (cataphyll) are papyraceous, colourless or violaceous (Zoellnerallium).

The flowers are hermaphroditic and actinomorphic, the perianth corolla like, with 6 (8 in Beauverdia) tepals fused at their base to form a floral tube arising around the ovary.

The filaments which are adnate (fused) to the tepals, uniting at their bases, the anthers dorsifixed (attached at their back) are oblong, yellow brown or green.

The capsule, which is humifuse (Ipheion, Beauverdia) or aerocarpic, globose or prismatic, and contains many seeds (pluriseeded) which are irregular and polyhedral with a black tegmen.

[5][6][7] These and related genera have been variously assigned to families Liliaceae, Amaryllidaceae, Alliaceae and even Gilliesiaceae over their history, often as tribe Gilliesieae Lindl.

[7][8] In 1985, Dahlgren's treatment of the Alliaceae (now Allioideae) within the monocotyledons, recognised three subfamilies; Gilliesioideae (Lindl.)

[10] The Gilliesioideae contained nine genera endemic to the southern part of South America, predominantly Chile.

In 1996, a molecular phylogenetic study of the rbcL gene showed Gilliesia and related genera clustering in a separate clade at subfamilial level.

[8] The authors rejected the proposal of Traub (1982)[11] of a separate family, Gilliesiaceae (later resurrected by Ravenna[12]), but rather created the Gilliesioideae, as one of three subfamilies within Alliaceae, together with Allioideae and Tulbaghioideae.

Garaventia and Steinmannia were not included in the study, but considered to be part of this newly reconstructed subfamily, a total of 13 genera.

[14] This construction of Gilliesioideae, which represented nearly all the Alliaceae genera (i.e. except Allium and Tulbaghia), implicitly recognised that it was composed of two groups or tribes, informally referred to as Ipheieae and Gilliesieae.

It contained about eight genera (Ancrumia, Gethyum, Gilliesia, Miersia, Schickendantziella, Solaria and Trichlora).

[15][7] A more detailed analysis using multiple markers (Fay et al. 2006) confirmed the monophyly of Gilliesioideae as a whole, as were the two tribes, although some genera such as Ipheion and Nothoscordum were biphyletic.

[15] In general the Gilliesieae, with their unusual floral morphology, have genera that are closely related.

However, the development of phylogenetic analysis revealed that Ipheion was not monophyletic, although the division into sections was later supported.

[2][23] The taxonomy of Gilliesieae s.s. remains difficult with limited sampling, because of the problem of obtaining material from these little-known plants.