Haemodoraceae is a family of perennial herbaceous

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s 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 South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

, and in the

Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...

(from SE U.S.A. to tropical South America). Perhaps the best known are the widely cultivated and unusual kangaroo paws from Australia, of the two closely related genera ''

Anigozanthos ''Anigozanthos'' is a genus of Southwest Australian plants of the bloodwort family Haemodoraceae. The 11 species and their subspecies are commonly known as kangaroo paw or catspaw, depending on their size, and the shape and color of their flo ...

'' and '' Macropidia''.

Taxonomy

The Haemodoraceae were first described by Robert Brown in 1810, and bear his name as the

botanical authority In botanical nomenclature, author citation is the way of citing the person or group of people who validly published a botanical name, i.e. who first published the name while fulfilling the formal requirements as specified by the '' International Co ...

. An alternative name has been Haemodoreae The fourth Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification of 2016 (unchanged from the earlier APG systems of

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and

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

), also recognizes this family and places it in the order

Commelinales Commelinales is an order of flowering plants. It comprises five families: Commelinaceae, Haemodoraceae, Hanguanaceae, Philydraceae, and Pontederiaceae. All the families combined contain over 885 species in about 70 genera; the majority of speci ...

, in the clade

commelinids In plant taxonomy, commelinids (originally commelinoids) (plural, not capitalised) is a clade of flowering plants within the monocots, distinguished by having cell walls containing ferulic acid. The commelinids are the only clade that the APG IV ...

, in the

monocots Monocotyledons (), commonly referred to as monocots, (Lilianae ''sensu'' Chase & Reveal) are grass and grass-like flowering plants (angiosperms), the seeds of which typically contain only one embryonic leaf, or cotyledon. They constitute one of t ...

. The family of the Haemodoraceae then includes about sixteen sub-tropical or tropical genera found in the southern hemisphere, two in North America and three known cultivated genera in Europe.

Description

Haemodoraceae is characterized by distichous leathery

leaves A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...

, which are alternate, succulent, rather large and often ensiform, with entire margins and parallel veins. The leaves are enclosed by a sheath with free margins and alternate, distichous (= in two vertical ranks). The plants are hermaphroditic. Pollinators are primarily insects, but also birds or sometimes a small mammal. The wooly-haired

flower A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...

s grow at the end of a leaflet stalk, in cymes (with lateral branches), panicles or racemes. The family is represented in

Southwest Australia Southwest Australia is a biogeographic region in Western Australia. It includes the Mediterranean-climate area of southwestern Australia, which is home to a diverse and distinctive flora and fauna. The region is also known as the Southwest Aus ...

by extreme diversity, including around six genera that only occur in that region. The endemic species include the kangaroo paws, ''

'' and '' Macropidia'', and the most speciose genus of the family, ''

Conostylis ''Conostylis'' is a genus of perennial herbs in the Haemodoraceae family, commonly known as cone flowers. All species are endemic to the south west of Western Australia. Taxonomy The genus is the most speciose of the Haemodoraceae family, and ...

Genera

The term "bloodwort" can also apply to ''

Sanguinaria canadensis ''Sanguinaria canadensis'', bloodroot, is a perennial, herbaceous flowering plant native to eastern North America. It is the only species in the genus ''Sanguinaria'', included in the poppy family Papaveraceae, and is most closely related to ' ...

'' (more often called bloodroot) or ''

Achillea millefolium ''Achillea millefolium'', commonly known as yarrow () or common yarrow, is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. Other common names include old man's pepper, devil's nettle, sanguinary, milfoil, soldier's woundwort, and thousand seal. The ...

'' (more often called yarrow or common yarrow), in other families.

References

Bibliography

* *
The families of flowering plants
Descriptions, illustrations, identification, information retrieval. *
Monocot families
' (USDA)
Haemodoraceae
at CSDL
overview of taxa in Western Australia
(144 entries)

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q131291 Commelinid families