Triuridaceae
Lacandonia schiamatica
The Triuridaceae are a family of loose leaf green, mykoheterotropher plants with nine genera and approximately 50 species.
Description
Triuridaceae are mostly perennial, small, always loose leaf green and hairless mykoheterotrophe plants with reduced vegetative characteristics and of white, yellow or red color. The rhizome provided with shed leaves is usually creeping, rarely erect. For each node usually grow one or two thread-like, cylindrical roots, mostly provided with long, white root hairs and grow in the bark of arbuscular mycorrhizal mycelium ( shown include Glomus species). The stele of the root is on or bidirectional.
The upright growing from the rhizome stem is mostly unbranched and 2-30 in Sciaphila purpurea up to 140 inches high. The sessile, triangular to ovate and einnervigen up to eight, sometimes up to fifteen leaves are spirally arranged.
The inflorescences are clusters of a few to many flowers, but can be reduced to isolated single flowers. Bracts are always present, additional bracts only at the Seychellaria. The display itself within a kind of extreme variability flowers are nearly always unisexual, monoecious and dioecious can be found in the family alike. The three to ten standing in one or two circles bracts are usually far bent almost to the flower stem and hairy on the inside or papillose. Can be found at their head often tufts of hair, thickening round or filamentous outgrowths.
The one to eight stamens are varied, numerous carpels are non grow. The round pollen are 15 to 30 microns in size without apertures and trinukleat.
The fruits are either along a longitudinal slot opening follicles or achenes and always included only one seed.
Distribution and habitat
Types of Triuridaceae find a majority in the tropical, isolated in subtropical regions of Asia, the northern South and Central America as well as in West and East Africa at altitudes 200-2200 m. Center of diversity is in the Malay Archipelago.
The majority of all types of lives in poor light, dense forests in tropical to subtropical conditions with high humidity under layers of rotting foliage and can be found on the banks of rivers or in close proximity to trees. A few species are also found in temporarily flooded forests, quartz sand, bamboo thickets or in termite nests. They occur frequently associated to other mykotrophen plant species.
Paleobotany
Fossil records of pollen and flowers of the ( extinct ) genera Mabelia or Nuhliantha of 1998 and 2002 include with their age of about 90 million years the oldest known fossils of monocotyledons at all. Phylogenetic analyzes placed the genera in the tribe of Triurideae and justify the assumption that they already had a mykotrophe life.
System
As with many mykoheterotrophen plants with extremely reduced features, the taxonomic history of the family is moving. The Triuridaceae were sometimes made in the relationship among the Alismatales and Liliales or even as a separate order or even understood superorder. Currently they are made to order Pandanales.
The family is divided into three tribes:
- Tribus Sciaphileae Seychellaria Hemsl. With about four species in Tanzania, Madagascar and Seychelles
- Andruris Schltr. With about 16 species ( also asked to Sciaphila )
- Sciaphila flower: with up to 37 species in the tropics
- Hyalisma Champ. With only one kind in India
- Soridium Miers: With one or two species that occur in South America
- Tribus Triurideae Triuris L.: With about four species in South America
- Triuridopsis H. Maas & Maas: With two species which occur in Bolivia and Peru
- Lacandonia E. Martínez & Ramos: With two species that occur in Brazil and Mexico
- Peltophyllum Gardner: With two species that occur in Brazil and Paraguay
- Tribus Kupeaeae Kupea Cheek & S. A. Williams: With two species in Tanzania and Cameroon
- Kihansia Cheek: With only one type: Kihansia lovettii Cheek in Tanzania
Evidence
- Hiltje Maas -van de Kamer, Traudel Weustenfeld: Triuridaceae, in: Klaus Kubitzki (ed.): The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants Vol 3, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-540-64060-6
- Peter F. Stevens: Angiosperm Phylogeny Website, Version 7, May 2006, accessed July 30, 2007, Online
- David John Mabberley: The Plant-Book. A portable dictionary of the higher plants. Cambridge University Press 1987. ISBN 0-521-34060-8