''Kingdonia uniflora'' is a species of

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

herb In general use, herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables and other plants consumed for macronutrients, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, for medicinal ...

native to China. The plants have one leaf and a flower stalk with a flower. It grows at high elevations in West and North China. Most of the plants are found in western

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...

. It is an

endangered species An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inv ...

Classification

''Kingdonia'' is sometimes classified as the only

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

in the family Kingdoniaceae or as a member of the family

Circaeasteraceae Circaeasteraceae is a family of two species of herbaceous plants native to China and the Himalayas. The family has been recognized by many taxonomists. The APG II system (2003; unchanged from the APG system of 1998), recognizes it and places it ...

along with ''

Circaeaster agrestis ''Circaeaster agrestis'' is a flowering plant species and one of only one to two species in its family, the Circaeasteraceae. The plant is a small, glabrous herb found in temperate zones from the northwest Himalaya to northwest China Ch ...

'', specifically in the

APG III system The APG III system of flowering plant classification is the third version of a modern, mostly molecular-based, system of plant taxonomy being developed by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG). Published in 2009, it was superseded in 2016 by a fur ...

of classification. Other sources may classify ''Kingdonia'' in the buttercup family,

Ranunculaceae Ranunculaceae (buttercup or crowfoot family; Latin "little frog", from "frog") is a family of over 2,000 known species of flowering plants in 43 genera, distributed worldwide. The largest genera are ''Ranunculus'' (600 species), ''Delphinium' ...

. In any case it is in the order

Ranunculales Ranunculales is an order of flowering plants. Of necessity it contains the family Ranunculaceae, the buttercup family, because the name of the order is based on the name of a genus in that family. Ranunculales belongs to a paraphyletic group kno ...

References

Ranunculales Monotypic Ranunculales genera Flora of China Taxa named by Isaac Bayley Balfour Taxa named by William Wright Smith {{Ranunculales-stub