''Brillantaisia'' is a genus of

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...

s in the family

Acanthaceae Acanthaceae is a family (the acanthus family) of dicotyledonous flowering plants containing almost 250 genera and about 2500 species. Most are tropical herbs, shrubs, or twining vines; some are epiphytes. Only a few species are distributed in te ...

. They are native to the African tropics and subtropics, including Madagascar. They may grow from 20 cm to 2 m in height. Their hirsute stems are square in cross-section and their heart-shaped leaves have an opposite arrangement. Their purple or white pea-like flowers produce long, cigar-shaped seed pods. They reproduce easily from seeds or vegetatively. One species, '' B. lamium'', is invasive in Queensland.

Species

It contains some 17 species, including: * '' Brillantaisia borellii'' Lindau * '' Brillantaisia cicatricosa'' Lindau * '' Brillantaisia debilis'' Burkill * '' Brillantaisia didynama'' Lindau * '' Brillantaisia fulva'' Lindau * '' Brillantaisia grandidentata'' S.Moore * '' Brillantaisia lamium'' Benth. * '' Brillantaisia lancifolia''

Lindau Lindau (german: Lindau (Bodensee), ''Lindau am Bodensee''; ; Low Alemannic German, Low Alemannic: ''Lindou'') is a major Town#Germany, town and Lindau (island), island on the eastern side of Lake Constance (''Bodensee'' in German) in Bavaria, Ge ...

* '' Brillantaisia madagascariensis'' T.Anderson ex Lindau * '' Brillantaisia majestica'' Wernham * '' Brillantaisia oligantha'' Milne-Redh. * '' Brillantaisia owariensis'' P.Beauv. * '' Brillantaisia pubescens'' T. Anderson ex Oliv. * '' Brillantaisia richardsiae'' Vollesen * '' Brillantaisia riparia'' ( Vollesen &

Brummitt Richard Kenneth "Dick" Brummitt (22 May 1937 - 18 September 2013) was a British botanist. Career He was born in Liverpool in1937 where he went to university and did his Ph.D. on Calystegia. In 1963 he was employed by the Ministry of Overseas Dev ...

) Sidwell * '' Brillantaisia stenopteris'' Sidwell * '' Brillantaisia ulugurica'' Lindau * '' Brillantaisia vogeliana'' Benth.

References

Acanthaceae Acanthaceae genera Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Acanthaceae-stub