Commelinales is an order of flowering plants. It comprises five families: Commelinaceae,

Haemodoraceae Haemodoraceae is a family of perennial herbaceous flowering plants with 14 genera and 102 known species. It is sometimes known as the "bloodwort family". Primarily a Southern Hemisphere family, they are found in South Africa, Australia and New ...

Hanguanaceae ''Hanguana'' is a genus of flowering plants with a dozen known species. It is the only genus in the family Hanguanaceae. The APG IV system of 2016 recognizes such a family and places it in the order Commelinales, in the clade commelinids, in th ...

Philydraceae Philydraceae is a family of flowering plants composed of three genera and a total of six known species. Such a family has not been recognized by many taxonomists. The APG II system, of 2003 (unchanged from the APG system, of 1998), does recogni ...

, and Pontederiaceae. All the families combined contain over 885 species in about 70

genera Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclat ...

; the majority of species are in the Commelinaceae. Plants in the order share a number of

synapomorphies In phylogenetics, an apomorphy (or derived trait) is a novel character or character state that has evolved from its ancestral form (or plesiomorphy). A synapomorphy is an apomorphy shared by two or more taxa and is therefore hypothesized to have ...

that tie them together, such as a lack of mycorrhizal associations and tapetal

raphides Raphides (pronounced /ˈræfɪˌdiz/, singular raphide /ˈreɪfʌɪd/ or raphis) are needle-shaped crystals of calcium oxalate monohydrate (prismatic monoclinic crystals) or calcium carbonate as aragonite ( dipyramidal orthorhombic crystals), fo ...

. Estimates differ as to when the Commelinales evolved, but most suggest an origin and diversification sometime during the mid- to late Cretaceous. Depending on the methods used, studies suggest a range of origin between 123 and 73 million years, with diversification occurring within the group 110 to 66 million years ago. The order's closest relatives are in the Zingiberales, which includes

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices ...

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

s, cardamom, and others.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, November 2011.

Taxonomy

According to the most recent classification scheme, the APG IV of 2016, the order includes five families: * Commelinaceae *

* Pontederiaceae This is unchanged from the APG III of 2009 and the APG II of 2003, but different from the older APG system of 1998, which did not include Hanguanaceae.

Previous classification systems

The older Cronquist system of 1981, which was based purely on morphological data, placed the order in subclass Commelinidae of class Liliopsida and included the families Commelinaceae, Mayacaceae,

Rapateaceae The Rapateaceae are a family of flowering plants. The botanical name has been recognized by most taxonomists. The APG II system of 2003 also recognizes this family, and assigns it to the order Poales in the clade commelinids, in the monocots. T ...

and Xyridaceae. These families are now known to be only distantly related. In the classification system of Dahlgren the Commelinales were one of four orders in the

superorder Order ( la, ordo) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between family and class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and ...

Commeliniflorae (also called Commelinanae), and contained five families, of which only Commelinaceae has been retained by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group.

References

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q290349 Angiosperm orders Extant Campanian first appearances