This small order contains several economically relevant weeds and ornamental species. Its flowers are equally complex and ephemeral, making it one of the trickiest groups to study
This TEN was formed around the need to integrate and coordinate the taxonomic, systematic, and nomenclatural studies of Commelinales. The families currently included in this order were historically members of distinct orders and were studied as independent and unrelated groups. However, molecular data strongly supports these five families as forming a monophyletic assembly despite their superficial morphological incongruence. Thus, we aim to provide an updated classification for Commelinales based on the integration of morphological, molecular, ecological, cytological, and phytochemical data.
This is an ongoing project, and we continue to welcome collaborators to help with the taxonomic curation of the order, contribute photos and illustrations for species, and supply or produce descriptive content to populate the World Flora Online portal. If you would like to know how you can help us, please get in touch with Marco Pellegrini, the TEN Focal.
Key People
- Marco Pellegrini (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew) — Commelinales systematics, Commelinaceae, Haemodoraceae, Hanguanaceae, Philydraceae, and Pontederiaceae
- Rafaël Govaerts (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew) — Nomenclature and systematics
- Adolfo Espejo-Serna (UAM-Iztapalapa) — Commelinaceae taxonomy
- Ehoarn Bidault (Missouri Botanical Garden) — Commelinaceae taxonomy
- Jason Grant (Université de Neuchâtel) — Commelinaceae taxonomy
- Santhosh Nampy (University of Calicut) — Commelinaceae taxonomy
- Ellen Hickman (University of Western Australia) — Haemodoraceae taxonomy
- Rhian Smith (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew) — Haemodoraceae taxonomy and systematic
- Stephen Hopper (University of Western Australia) — Haemodoraceae taxonomy and systematic
- Matti Niissalo (Singapore Botanic Garden) — Hanguanaceae taxonomy and systematic
- Jana Škorničková (Singapore Botanic Garden) — Hanguanaceae taxonomy and systematics
- Charles Horn (Newberry College) — Pontederiaceae taxonomy and systematics
The Commelinales Working Group was set up in 2016 to concatenate and coordinate the systematic study of this complex and understudied group. We have joined forces worldwide to slowly improve and update the classification of Commelinales and its five families. This has been a mammoth task since some taxa are very poorly understood, and due to this group’s very delicate flowers, there’s only so much that can be understood and extracted from the few available herbarium specimens. On top of that, Commelinales includes a large number of weedy and aquatic species, which tend to be very widespread and show broad morphological plasticity. These factors combined easily explain several morphological, taxonomic and systematic misinterpretations that riddle the group. Our group majorly focuses on producing a well-sampled and well-supported molecular phylogeny for the order, combining both molecular and morphological data, providing taxonomic and regional accounts of its taxa, unravelling the group’s tangled systematic and nomenclatural history, and understanding its biogeography, trait evolution and diversification.
Key Literature
- Bayer, C.; Appel, O. & Rudall, P.J. (1998). Hanguanceae. In: K. Kubitzki (ed.) The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants. Flowering plants: Monocotyledons – Alismatanae and Commelinanae (except Gramineae), vol. IV. Springer Verlag. Berlin. pp. 223–225.
- Cook, C.D.K. (1998). Pontederiaceae. In: K. Kubitzki (ed.) The families and genera of vascular plants: Monocotyledons – Alismatanae and Commelinanae (except Gramineae), vol. IV. Springer Verlag. Berlin. pp. 395–403.
- Faden, R.B. & Hunt, D.R. (1991). The classification of the Commelinaceae. Taxon 40: 19–31.
- Faden, R.B. (1998). Commelinaceae. In: K. Kubitzki (ed.) The families and genera of vascular plants: Monocotyledons – Alismatanae and Commelinanae (except Gramineae), vol. IV. Springer Verlag, Berlin. pp. 109–128.
- Givnish, T.J.; Evans, T.M.; Pires, J.C. & Sytsma, K.J. (1999). Polyphyly and convergent morphological evolution in Commelinales and Commelinidae: evidence from rbcL sequence data. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 12: 360–385.
- Hamann, U. (1998). Philydraceae. In: K. Kubitzki (ed.) The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants. Flowering plants: Monocotyledons – Alismatanae and Commelinanae (except Gramineae), vol. IV. Springer Verlag. Berlin. pp. 389–394.
- Hopper, S.D.; Smith, R.J.; Fay, M.F.; Manning, J.C. & Chase, M.W. (2009). Molecular phylogenetics of Haemodoraceae in the Greater Cape and Southwest Australian Floristic Regions. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 51: 19–30.
- Jung, J.-H.; Kim, C.-K. & Kim, J.-H. (2021). Insights into phylogenetic relationships and genome evolution of subfamiy Commelinoideae (Commelinaceae Mirb.) inferred from complete chloroplast genomes. BMC Genomics 22: 231 (2021).
- Pellegrini, M.O.O. & Faden, R.B. (2017). Recircumscription and taxonomic revision of Siderasis, with comments on the systematics of subtribe Dichorisandrinae (Commelinaceae). PhytoKeys 83: 1–41.
- Pellegrini, M.O.O. (2017). Morphological phylogeny of Tradescantia L. (Commelinaceae) sheds light on a new infrageneric classification for the genus and novelties on the systematics of subtribe Tradescantiinae. PhytoKeys 89: 11–72.
- Pellegrini, M.O.O. (2017). Two new synonyms for Heteranthera (Pontederiaceae, Commelinales). Nordic Journal of Botany 35(1): 124–128.
- Pellegrini, M.O.O.; Hickman, E.J.; Guttiérrez, J.E.; Smith, R.J. & Hopper, S.D. (2020). Revisiting the taxonomy of the Neotropical Haemodoraceae (Commelinales). PhytoKeys 169: 1–59.
- Rudall, P.J.; Stevenson, D.W. & Linder, H.P. (1999). Structure and systematics of Hanguana, a monocotyledon of uncertain affinity. Australian Systematic Botany 12: 311–330.
- Saarela, J.M.; Prentis, P.J.; Rai, H.S. & Graham, S.W. (2008). Phylogenetic relationships in the monocot order Commelinales, with a focus on Philydraceae. Botany 86: 719–731.
- Simpson, M.G. (1990). Phylogeny and classification of the Haemodoraceae. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 77: 722–784.
- Simpson, M.G. (1998). Haemodoraceae. In: K. Kubitzki (ed.) The families and genera of vascular plants: Monocotyledons – Alismatanae and Commelinanae (except Gramineae), vol. IV. Springer Verlag, Berlin. pp. 212–222.
Acknowledgements
We thank Robert B. Faden (Smithsonian Institution) and David R. Hunt (in memoriam) for their paramount contribution to the taxonomy and systematics of Commelinaceae; Paul Maas (Utrecht University) and Hiltje Maas-van de Kamer (Utrecht University) for their contributions to the taxonomy of Neotropical Haemodoraceae; Michael G. Simpson (San Diego State University) for his contributions to Haemodoraceae systematics; all aforementioned botanists for their contributions towards updating the World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP) for Commelinales; and everyone who has contributed with data and images of Commelinales throughout the years.
Flora Morphology of Commelinaceae & Haemodoraceae