Polyspatha

Polyspatha is a genus of perennial monocotyledonous flowering plants in the dayflower family. It is restricted to tropical Africa consists of three recognized species.[2]

Polyspatha
Polyspatha paniculata[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Plantae
(unranked):
Angiosperms
(unranked):
Monocots
(unranked):
Commelinids
Order:
Commelinales
Family:
Commelinaceae
Subfamily:
Commelinoideae
Tribe:
Commelineae
Genus:
Polyspatha

Benth., 1849
Type species
P. paniculata

The genus is characterised by its unique leaf-like bracts that subtend inflorescences (often called spathes), which are arranged oppositely up the flowering shoot. Plants in the genus also have white flowers, two carpels with one seed in each, and vegetative reproduction by stolons.[3] Along with most other genera of the Commelineae tribe with relatively few species, Polyspatha is found in tropical forest understories, and also in disturbed shady locations.[3][4]

Species[2]
  • Polyspatha paniculata Benth. - western + central Africa from Sierra Leone to Zaire + Tanzania
  • Polyspatha oligospatha Faden - western + central Africa from Ivory Coast to Zaire + Sudan
  • Polyspatha hirsuta Mildbr. - western + central Africa from Sierra Leone to Zaire + Uganda

References
  1. illustration accompanying original description of the genus. C.B. Clarke in Alphonse Pyramus de Candolle; Lithography by A. Leuba - Table III from C.B. Clarke's treatment of Commelinaceae in Monographiæ phanerogamarum, 1881
  2. "World Checklist of Selected Plant Families: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew". apps.kew.org. Retrieved 2016-08-11.
  3. Faden, Robert B. (1998), "Commelinaceae", in Kubitzki, Klaus (ed.), The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants, 4, Berlin: Springer, pp. 109–128, ISBN 3-540-64061-4
  4. Evans, Timothy M.; Sytsma, Kenneth J.; Faden, Robert B.; Givnish, Thomas J. (2003), "Phylogenetic Relationships in the Commelinaceae: II. A Cladistic Analysis of rbcL Sequences and Morphology", Systematic Botany, 28 (2): 270–292, doi:10.1043/0363-6445-28.2.270
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