Romnalda is a small genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of monocotyledonous plants in the family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Asparagaceae

Asparagaceae

Asparagaceae is the botanical name of a family of flowering plants, placed in the order Asparagales of the monocots.In earlier classification systems, the species involved were often treated as belonging to the family Liliaceae...

, subfamily Lomandroideae

Lomandroideae

Lomandroideae is a subfamily of monocot flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae, order Asparagales, according to the APG III system of 2009. The subfamily name is derived from the generic name of the type genus, Lomandra. The group has previously been treated as a separate family Laxmanniaceae...

. (It has also been placed in the Xanthorrhoeaceae

Xanthorrhoeaceae

Xanthorrhoeaceae is the botanical name of a family of flowering plants in the order Asparagales. Such a family has been recognized by most taxonomists, but the circumscription of the family has varied wildly....

.) The name Romnalda is an anagram

Anagram

An anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place, Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort. Someone who...

 of Lomandra, a related though more common genus of sedge

Cyperaceae

Cyperaceae are a family of monocotyledonous graminoid flowering plants known as sedges, which superficially resemble grasses or rushes. The family is large, with some 5,500 species described in about 109 genera. These species are widely distributed, with the centers of diversity for the group...

-like plants. The genus Romnalda differs from Lomandra in growing exclusively in rainforests and having sparsely branched inflorescences with no spines. Plants have strap-like leaves and grow up to one meter (3 feet) tall often with a trunk and stilt roots reminiscent of a miniature Pandanus

Pandanus

Pandanus is a genus of monocots with about 600 known species. They are numerous palmlike dioecious trees and shrubs native of the Old World tropics and subtropics. They are classified in the order Pandanales, family Pandanaceae.-Overview:...

.
Species of Romnalda can be found in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

.

Species

Currently there are three formally named species:

• R. strobilacea is a vulnerable species restricted to basaltic soils north of Brisbane in South East Queensland
  South East Queensland
  South East Queensland is a region of the state of Queensland in Australia, which contains approximately two-thirds of the state population...
  
   Australia.
• R. grallata is a species restricted to cloud forests on a few misty peaks in the Daintree Rainforest
  Daintree Rainforest
  The Daintree Rainforest is a tropical rainforest on the north east coast of Queensland, Australia, north of Mossman and Cairns. At around 1200 square kilometres the Daintree is the largest continuous area of tropical rainforest on the Australian continent...
  
   in Northern Queensland.
• R. papuana is a species found only in a handful of locations in Papua New Guinea
  Papua New Guinea
  Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
  
   including the island of New Britain
  New Britain
  New Britain, or Niu Briten, is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from the island of New Guinea by the Dampier and Vitiaz Straits and from New Ireland by St. George's Channel...
  
  .

There is at least one additional species from lowland tropical rainforests in the Wet Tropics of North Queensland

North Queensland

North Queensland or the Northern Region is the northern part of the state of Queensland in Australia. Queensland is a massive state, larger than most countries, and the tropical northern part of it has been historically remote and undeveloped, resulting in a distinctive regional character and...

that is yet to be given a formal scientific name (R. species little Cooper Ck). These plants are rather unusual as garden subjects though most species are protected and little cultivated.