Clades:
Commelinales;
Liliidae;
Lilianae;
Angiospermae;
Plants.
Members: 16 genera; 100 species.; Members: Anigozanthos, Barberetta, Blancoa, Conostylis, Dilatris, Haemodourum, Lachnanthes, Macropidia, Phlebocarya, Pyrrorhiza, Schiekia, Tribonanthes, Wachendorfia, Xiphidium.
Philydraceae: Helmholtzia, Philydrum, Philydrella.
Region: mostly South Hemisphere.
Content: polyphenolic red pigment in the roots and rhizomes.
BotanyHerbs; perennial, rarely annual; geophytic.
Root: rhizomatous, often stoloniferous; sap often red or orange.
Stems: simple.
Leaves: mostly basal; distichous, irislike; blade linear; sheathing proximally, folded lengthwise distally, folded portions becoming fused. Inflorescence: terminal, cymose or corymbose; many-branched, many-flowered, loose or condensed.
Flowers: perfect, regular; tepals persistent, 6 in 2 whorls of 3; distinct above level of insertion on ovary, ± equal, aestivation valvate.
Stamens: 3 or 6; opposite the petals; filaments elongate; anthers basifixed, 2-locular, often basally sagittate, dehiscence introrse by longitudinal slits.
Ovary: inferior or half-inferior to nearly superior; 3-locular with axile placentae, or 1-locular distally with parietal placentae and 3-locular proximally with axile placentae; ovules 1, 3–6, or numerous in each locule, arranged in vertical rows or around margin of peltate placenta, orthotropous or anatropous; style 1, undivided, elongate; stigma 1, capitate, terminal, very small; pistil 1, compound, 3-carpellate.
Fruits: capsular, dehiscence loculicidal; embryo small, with a terminal cotyledon, embedded in the copious, fleshy, starchy endosperm, which also contains stored protein, oil, and hemicellulose.
Seeds: discoid and peltate, or elongate and variously curved; endosperm present.
TaxonomyHaemodoraceae is a
Family in
Commelinales in the
Apg3 classification.
Plant theoryIn the
Plant theory Haemodoraceae is placed in
Commelinales,
Phase 3. Together with
Philydraceae it is placed in
Subphase 6.
The most succesful case in
Commelinales were from the
Haemodoraceae. This reflects probably the fact that
Haemodoraceae is in the same
Subphase 6 as
Commelinales was in the first version of the
Plant theory.