Plowmanianthus
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Plowmanianthus Faden & C.R.Hardy is a genus of plants with 5 species and 2 subspecies in the family Commelinaceae (the spiderwort and dayflower family). The genus is distributed from Panama to Amazonian Peru and Brazil.
[edit] Systematics
Plowmanianthus is a member of the subtribe Dichorisandrinae of the tribe Tradescantieae of the flowering plant family Commelinaceae. It has 5 species and 2 subspecies, all of which were described with the circumscription of the genus Plowmanianthus itself by Hardy and Faden (2004).
[edit] Morphology
Rosette, typically unbranched herbs with somewhat succulent, strap-shaped leaves. In the wild, plants grow on the floor of primary rainforests, shallowly rooted in the humus-rich and leaf-litter layers.
Plowmanianthus resembles its close relative, the epiphytic genus Cochliostema, but is smaller (its leaves reach only to ca. 30 cm in length) and is not epiphytic. Its flowers are also much smaller, lack the spirally coiled anthers of Cochliostema, and are usually cleistogamous (i.e., they usually never open).
[edit] References
- Hardy CR, RB Faden (2004) Plowmanianthus, a new genus of Commelinaceae with five new species from tropical America. Systematic Botany 29 (2): 316-333.
- Hardy CR, JI Davis, DW Stevenson (2004) Floral organogenesis in Plowmanianthus (Commelinaceae). International Journal of Plant Sciences 165 (4): 511-519.
