Overview

The Dichorisandrinae is a subtribe within the tribe Tradescantieae of the flowering plant family Commelinaceae

Commelinaceae

Commelinaceae is a family of flowering plants. In less formal contexts, the group is referred to as the dayflower family or spiderwort family. It is one of five families in the order Commelinales and by far the largest of these with an estimated 650 species in 40 genera. Well known genera include...

. It consists of 5 genera

Genera

Genera is a commercial operating system and development environment for Lisp machines developed by Symbolics. It is essentially a fork of an earlier operating system originating on the MIT AI Lab's Lisp machines which Symbolics had used in common with LMI and Texas Instruments...

 and ca. 51 species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

.

The subtribe represents a diverse assemblage native to tropical South America and a contiguous portion of Central America. Not only is this subtribe remarkable for the range of morphological and ecological variation within it, but it also includes species that represent novel exceptions to the terrestrial habit, longitudinally-dehiscent anthers, and/or exarillate seeds typical of the family. Exceptional taxa include Dichorisandra

Dichorisandra

Dichorisandra is a genus of perennial monocotyledonous flowering plants in the dayflower family. It is found in the neotropics and consists of about 25 species...

, characterized by the unusual combination of a vining habit, poricidal anthers, and arillate seeds. Cochliostema

Cochliostema

Cochliostema is a genus of plants with two species in the family Commelinaceae . The genus occurs from southern Nicaragua to southern Ecuador.-Systematics:...

is atypical in having an epiphytic habit and flowers with spirally-coiled anthers concealed in petaloid extensions of the filament. Geogenanthus

Geogenanthus

Geogenanthus is a genus of plants with 3 species in the family Commelinaceae . The genus is distributed from Colombia to Amazonian Peru and Brazil...

is distinguished by a particular 6-celled stomatal complex and basal axillary inflorescences. Plowmanianthus

Plowmanianthus

Plowmanianthus Faden & C.R.Hardy is a genus of plants with 5 species and 2 subspecies in the family Commelinaceae . The genus is distributed from Panama to Amazonian Peru and Brazil.-Systematics:...

consists of prostrate herbs shallowly rooted in the leaf-litter layer of rainforest floors, and most Plowmanianthus

Plowmanianthus

Plowmanianthus Faden & C.R.Hardy is a genus of plants with 5 species and 2 subspecies in the family Commelinaceae . The genus is distributed from Panama to Amazonian Peru and Brazil.-Systematics:...

species's flowers are primarily cleistogamous.

Included Genera

Faden & Hunt's (1991) formal circumscription of the subtribe did not yet include Plowmanianthus, which was then undescribed and poorly understood. Hardy & Faden (2004) later added the newly described Plowmanianthus. Members are perennial, primarily understory, herbaceous taxa united on the basis of chromosome morphology (generally large), a shared base chromosome number (x = 19), and a biseriate arrangement of seeds in each locule (2 longitudinal files of seeds in each locule), although the seeds are uniseriate in Plowmanianthus.

• Cochliostema
  Cochliostema
  Cochliostema is a genus of plants with two species in the family Commelinaceae . The genus occurs from southern Nicaragua to southern Ecuador.-Systematics:...
  
  Lem., with 2 species.
• Dichorisandra
  Dichorisandra
  Dichorisandra is a genus of perennial monocotyledonous flowering plants in the dayflower family. It is found in the neotropics and consists of about 25 species...
  
  Mik., with ca. 40 species.
• Geogenanthus
  Geogenanthus
  Geogenanthus is a genus of plants with 3 species in the family Commelinaceae . The genus is distributed from Colombia to Amazonian Peru and Brazil...
  
  Ule, with 3 species.
• Plowmanianthus
  Plowmanianthus
  Plowmanianthus Faden & C.R.Hardy is a genus of plants with 5 species and 2 subspecies in the family Commelinaceae . The genus is distributed from Panama to Amazonian Peru and Brazil.-Systematics:...
  
  Faden & C.R.Hardy, with 5 species.
• Siderasis Raf., with 1 species.