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Haemodoraceae

 
Haemodoraceae
Kangaroo Paw (Anigozanthos flavidus)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Monocots
(unranked): Commelinids
Order: Commelinales
Family: Haemodoraceae
R.Br.
genera

see text

Anigozanthos Bush Pearl in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Cranbourne

Haemodoraceae is a family of flowering plants. It is sometimes known as the "Bloodwort family". Primarily a Southern Hemisphere family, they are found in South Africa, Australia and New Guinea, and in the Americas (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.

The APG II system, of 2003 (unchanged from the APG system, of 1998), also recognizes this family and places it in the order Commelinales, in the clade commelinids, in the monocots. The family then includes about a dozen genera, totalling several dozen species, of perennial herbaceous plants.

The leathery leaves are rather large and entire or ensiform, with entire margins. 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 flowers grow at the end of a leafles stalk, in cymes (with lateral branches), panicles or racemes.

Potentially confused plants

The term bloodwort can also apply to Sanguinaria canadensis (more often called bloodroot) or Achillea millefolium (more often called yarrow or common yarrow).

Genera

References

ср:Haemodoraceae


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Lachnanthes tinctoria
Anigozanthos humilis
Catspaw

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Wikipedia on Answers.com. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Haemodoraceae Read more

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