The

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...

Griffineae (in the family Amaryllidaceae, subfamily Amaryllidoideae) includes 2 genera with 22 species from

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

which are actually endemic to

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. A typical character of the representatives of the tribe are the flowers - They are with blue or lilac color collected into an

umbel In botany, an umbel is an inflorescence that consists of a number of short flower stalks (called pedicels) that spread from a common point, somewhat like umbrella ribs. The word was coined in botanical usage in the 1590s, from Latin ''umbella'' "p ...

. Only the members of this tribe and the genus '' Lycoris'' are able to form flowers with such color in the whole family Amaryllidaceae. The plants in this group are typical perennial flowers which are producing bulbs. The leaves are green, with elliptical form in the most of the cases but in some members as in '' Worsleya'' they are sword-shaped.

Taxonomy

The Müller-Doblies' (1996) placed ''Griffinia'' in its own subtribe Griffiniinae (of tribe

Hippeastreae Hippeastreae is a tribe of plants belonging to the subfamily Amaryllidoideae of the Amaryllis family (Amaryllidaceae). Species in this tribe are distributed in South America. Flowers are large and showy, zygomorphic, with the stamens in varying ...

) and did not recognise ''Worsleya'', which they submerged in ''

Phycella ''Phycella'' is a genus of herbaceous, perennial bulbous flowering plants belonging to the family Amaryllidaceae, subfamily Amaryllidoideae. The genus consists of five species distributed from central Chile to northwestern Argentina. Taxonomy ...

''. In contrast, Meerow and Snijman (1998) resurrected it, placing both genera within Hippeastreae. Subsequently, molecular phylogenetic studies demonstrated that Griffineae was a distinct and separate tribe.

Phylogeny

The placement of Griffineae within subfamily Amaryllidoideae is shown in the following cladogram, where this tribe is shown as a sister group to the

, forming the Hippeastroid subclade, of two American

clades A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...

Subdivision

Two genera: * '' Griffinia'' * '' Worsleya''

References

Bibliography

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External links

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2879574 Amaryllidoideae Asparagales tribes