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| Commelinales
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Kangaroo Paw (Anigozanthos flavidus) | ||||||||
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Commelinaceae Haemodoraceae Hanguanaceae Philydraceae Pontederiaceae
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The Commelinales are an order of monocots, including the spiderwort family, Commelinaceae . Unfortunately the composition of the remainder of the group has been highly variable.
Under Cronquist, the following additional families were recognized:
However, many more modern authors consider these families to have closer affinities to other groups, moving the Xyridaceae to the Eriocaulales and the others to the Bromeliales.
In their place, a series of forms formerly classified in the Liliales have been realized to have closer affinities to the Commelinidae, and so are either grouped in the Commelinales or in a separate, possibly paraphyletic, order Philydrales.
The families, according the update of the APG II ( Angiosperm Phylogeny Group), included in the Commelinales are then as follows:
This variability in membership makes characterization of the Commelinales, beyond being the Commelinaceae and its close relatives, very difficult.
Plants