Colchicaceae

Colchicaceae
Colchicum autumnale
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Monocots
Order:	Liliales
Family:	Colchicaceae DC.
Genera
See text

Colchicaceae is a botanical name of a family of flowering plants.

The APG III system, of 2009 (unchanged from the APG systems, of 1998 and 2003), does recognize such a family and places it in the order Liliales, in the clade monocots, and regards the family as including some two hundred species of herbaceous perennials with rhizomes or corms.

The Dahlgren system and the Thorne system (1992) also recognized this family, and placed it in order Liliales in superorder Lilianae in subclass Liliidae (monocotyledons) of class Magnoliopsida (angiosperms).

Genera

The following is an alphabetic list of genera usually included in this family :

• Baeometra
• Burchardia
• Camptorrhiza
• Colchicum (including Androcymbium, Bulbocodium, and Merendera)
• Disporum
• Gloriosa (including Littonia)
• Hexacyrtis
• Iphigenia
• Kuntheria
• Ornithoglossum
• Sandersonia
• Schelhammera
• Tripladenia
• Uvularia
• Wurmbea (including Neodregea and Onixotis)

The phylogenetic classification of Vinnersten & Manning (2007) circumscribes the family as follows.

• tribe Burchardieae

• Burchardia R.Br.

• tribe Uvularieae

• Disporum Salisb. (excluding the North American species to the genus Prosartes D.Don, now in the family Liliaceae, Liliales)
• Uvularia L.

• tribe Tripladenieae

• Kuntheria Conran & Clifford
• Schelhammera R.Br.
• Tripladenia D.Don

• tribe Iphigenieae

• Camptorrhiza E.Phillips
• Iphigenia Kunth

• tribe Anguillarieae

• Baeometra Salisb.
• Wurmbea Thunb. (including Neodregea C.H.Wright and Onixotis Raf.)

• tribe Colchiceae

• Colchicum L. (including Androcymbium Willd., Bulbocodium L. and Merendera Ramond)
• Gloriosa L. (including Littonia Hook.)
• Hexacyrtis Dinter
• Ornithoglossum Salisb.
• Sandersonia Hook.

The genus Petermannia F.Muell. is excluded from this family and placed in its own family Petermanniaceae, Liliales. There is still some controversy regarding the inclusion of Androcymbium in Colchicum as genetic analysis do not separate the genera unless morphological characters are taken into account. As the investigations thus far haven't included all relevant species the question awaits resolve from larger analyses.

References

• Vinnersten, A. & Manning, J. (2007).A new classification of Colchicaceae. Taxon 56(1): 163-169.

External links

• Colchicaceae, Uvulariaceae in L. Watson and M.J. Dallwitz (1992 onwards). The families of flowering plants: descriptions, illustrations, identification, information retrieval. Version: 9 March 2006. http://delta-intkey.com.
• NCBI Taxonomy Browser
• images at PlantSystematics.org
• links at CSDL, Texas