font settings

Font Size: Large | Normal | Small
Font Face: Verdana | Geneva | Georgia

Zingiberales

(Order)

Overview

[ Back to top ]

Zingiberales is an order of flowering plants. The order has been widely recognised by the taxonomists, at least for the past few decades. This order includes many familiar plants like ginger, cardamom, turmeric, galangal and myoga of the Zingiberaceae or ginger family, and bananas and plantains of the Musaceae or banana family, along with arrowroot of the Marantaceae or arrowroot family.

It is considered that the Zingiberales together with the Commelinales evolved around 80 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous.

[ Back to top ]

The APG III system, of 2009 [unchanged from the APG system (1998) and the APG II system (2003)], recognizes this order and assigns it to the clade commelinids, in the monocots. It is circumscribed as:

The Cronquist system, also recognised this order consisting of the same eight families, but organized the order in the subclass Zingiberidae of the class Lilio psida [=monocotyledons].

Earlier systems, such as the Wettstein system, last revised in 1935, and the Engler system, updated in 1964, recognised a similar order (containing the same plants, although divided over fewer families) Scitamineae.

External links

[ Back to top ]

Taxonomy

[ Back to top ]

The Order Zingiberales is further organized into finer groupings including:

Families

[ Back to top ]

Cannaceae

Canna (or Canna lily, although not a true lily) is a genus of nineteen species of flowering plants. The closest living relations to cannas are the other plant families of the order Zingiberales, that is the gingers, bananas, marantas, heliconias, strelitzias, etc. [more]

Costaceae

Costaceae or the Costus Family is a family of pantropical monocots. They belong to the order Zingiberales, which contains other horticulturally and economically important plants such as the banana (Musaceae), bird-of-paradise (Strelitziaceae), and edible ginger (Zingiberaceae). The seven genera contain about 100 species (1 in Monocostus, 2 in Dimerocostus, 16 in Tapeinochilos, 2 in Paracostus, ca. 8 in Chamaecostus, ca. 4 in Cheilocostus, ca. 80 in Costus) and are found in tropical climates of Asia, Africa, and Central/South America. [more]

Heliconiaceae

Heliconia, derived from the Greek word helikonios, is a genus of about 100 to 200 species of flowering plants native to the tropical Americas and the Pacific Ocean islands west to Indonesia. Many species of Heliconia are found in rainforests or tropical wet forests of these regions. Common names for the genus include lobster-claws, wild plantains or false bird-of-paradise. The last term refers to their close similarity to the bird-of-paradise flowers (Strelitzia). Collectively, these plants are also simply referred to as heliconias. [more]

Lowiaceae

Herbs rhizomatous. Stem very short. Leaves basal, distichous; petiole well developed, base sheathing; leaf blade lanceolate or oblong, with several pairs of longitudinal veins parallel to a distinct midvein. Inflorescence axillary or arising from rhizomes, cymose or reduced to a solitary flower, bracteate. Flowers bisexual, zygomorphic. Sepals 3, lanceolate. Petals 3, very unequal; middle petal enlarged to form a labellum; lateral petals small, apex often aristate. Stamens 5; filaments short; anthers 2-celled, dehiscing by longitudinal slits. Ovary inferior, 3-loculed, apex elongate; ovules numerous per locule; placentation axile. Style slender; stigmas 3, laciniate. Fruit a capsule, 3-valved, loculicidal. Seeds numerous, arillate; aril 3-lobed.[1] [more]

Marantaceae

The Marantaceae or arrowroot family is a family of flowering plants known for its large starchy rhizomes. It is sometimes called the prayer-plant family. Combined morphological and DNA phylogenetic analyses indicate the family originated in Africa, although this is not the center of its extant diversity. [more]

Musaceae

Musaceae ( or /mju?'ze???.i?/) is a botanical name for a family of flowering plants. The family is native to the tropics of Africa and Asia. The plants have a large herbaceous growth habit with leaves with overlapping basal sheaths that form a pseudostem making some members appear to be woody trees. [more]

Strelitziaceae

Strelitziaceae is a family of monocotyledonous flowering plants. The plants are very similar in appearance and growth habit to members of the related families Heliconiaceae and Musaceae (banana family). The genera of Strelitziaceae have been included in Musaceae in some classifications, but are generally recognized as a separate family in more recent treatments such as the APG II system (2003). The APG II system assigns Strelitziaceae to the order Zingiberales in the commelinid clade. [more]

Zingiberaceae

Zingiberaceae, or the Ginger family, is a family of flowering plants consisting of aromatic perennial herbs with creeping horizontal or tuberous rhizomes, comprising ca. 52 genera and more than 1300 species, distributed throughout tropical Africa, Asia, and the Americas. [more]

At least 3,099 species and subspecies belong to the Family Zingiberaceae.

More info about the Family Zingiberaceae may be found here.

Bibliography

[ Back to top ]

Footnotes

[ Back to top ]
  1. Delin Wu & W. John Kress "Lowiaceae". in Flora of China Vol. 24 Page 319. Published by Science Press (Beijing) and Missouri Botanical Garden Press. Online at EFloras.org.

Sources

[ Back to top ]
Last Revised: August 24, 2012
2012/08/24 13:15:59