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 Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
,
Australia and
New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...
, 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'' 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 Cod ...
. An alternative name has been Haemodoreae
The fourth
Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification of 2016 (unchanged from the earlier APG systems of
2009,
2003 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 s ...
), 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 sp ...
, 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 I ...
, 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 ...
.
[ 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, which are alternate, succulent, rather large and often ensiform, with entire margins and parallel veins.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 by extreme diversity, including around six genera that only occur in that region. The endemic species include the kangaroo paws, '' Anigozanthos'' and '' Macropidia'', and the most speciose genus of the family, '' Conostylis.
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