The Iris Family, Iridaceae

See below:

• * Genera A to Z
• * Outline of Iridaceae
• * Cladistics and Phylogeny

Outline of Iridaceae:

The Iris family is one of the larger families in the class Monocotyledonae, order Asparagales, and filled with ornamental plants. The Genus Iris is the type genus for the family. The family is so large that it is broken up into subfamilies and many of those into tribes. The Genus Iris is in the tribe Irideae in the subfamily Iridoideae:

• Subfamily Isophysidoideae, one Genus, Isophysis with 1 species
• Subfamily Patersonioideae, one Genus, Patersonia with 21 species
• Subfamily Geosiridoideae, one Genus, Geosiris with 2 species
• Subfamily Aristeodeae, one Genus, Aristea with about 55 species
• Subfamily Nivenioideae, three Genera, Nivenia, Klattia, and Witsenia with 15 species
• Subfamily Crocoideae, twenty-nine Genera, with 1,010 species in five Tribes:
  • Tribe Tritoniopsideae, Genus Tritoniopsis
  • Tribe Watsonieae, Genera- Zygotritonia, Savannosiphon, Lapeirousia, Pillansia, Thereianthus, Micranthus, Watsonia.
  • Tribe Gladioleae, Genera-Gladiolus, Melasphaerula.
  • Tribe Freesiae, Genera-Crocosmia, Devia, Freesia, Xenoscapa.
  • Tribe Croceae, Genera-Radinosiphon, Romulea, Afrocrocus, Syringodea, Crocus, Geissorhiza, Hesperantha, Babiana, Chasmanthe, Sparaxis, Duthieastrum, Tritonia, Ixia, Dierama,
• Subfamily _Iridoideae_ . 30 Genera, about 890 species, in five tribes:
  • Tribe Diplarreneae; Genus Diplarrena
  • Tribe Irideae; Genera- Iris, Dietes, Bobartia, Ferraria, Moraea
  • Tribe Sisyrinchieae; Genera- Libertia, Orthosanthus, Olsynium, Sisyrinchium, Solenomelus, Tapeinia
  • Tribe Trimezieae; Genera-Trimezia, Pseudotrimezia, Neomarica
  • Tribe Tigridieae; Genera- Alophia, Calydorea, Cipura, Cobana, Cypella, Eleutherine, Ennealophus, Gelasine, Herbertia, Hesperoxiphion, Larentia, Mastigostyla, Nemastylis, Salpingostylis, Tigridia

Phylogeny of the family; In recent years the Iris family has undergone a lot of revision and the most current mongraph on the subject is The Iris Family, Natural History and Classification by Peter Goldblatt & John Manning, Timber Press 2008. For a current update on the taxonomy one can go to http://www.mobot.org/mobot/research/apweb/welcome.html

A 1990 cladistic analysis of the Iris family is available at Annals of Missouri Botanical Botanical Garden, 1990

Lists of accepted species are verified by the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families "With the permission of the Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew" and cross checked by the International Plant Names Index. Any errors are solely those of the manager of this scientific collaboration project and should be called attention to the wiki manager. Our mission is to provide the best possible information for horticulturalists and botanists.

related links.....What is Botanical Classification Note: There has always been disagreement in what constitutes a genus. Recently several papers have been published suggesting the Genus Iris should be split into 23 separate genera. This is not new. Historically there have been Several Genera that have been synonyms of current Sections or Series of the Genus Iris. Some include:

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References for Iridaceae

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-- BobPries - 2010-02-03