1983/01/01 by Carroll E. Wood · 1 citation
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Social Sciences · #Botany, Ecology, and Taxonomy Studies #Botanical Research and Chemistry #Archaeology and Natural History #Geography #Forestry #Ecology #Biology
paper · doi:10.5962/p.324744
openalex publication_date 1983/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
cons (Burmannia Family)Annual (or perennial), autotrophic, partly autotrophic, or achlorophyllous "saprophytic" herbs.Leaves alternate, simple, entire, exstipulate, mostly reduced to scales, the photosynthetic species leafy stemmed, with or without a basal rosette of small, linear leaves.Flowers perfect, regular (actinomorphic) [or zygomorphic or rarely 2-lipped].Inflorescences mostly monochasia or dischasia, often reduced to a single terminal flower or condensed and headlike.Perianth petaloid, white or colored, of 2 whorls of 3 tepals united to form a tube, the 3 inner usually smaller than the outer in Burmannieae [or the 3 outer smaller, often almost lacking in Thismieae]; perianth tube cylindrical or 3-angled, often 3-winged [or 3-or 6-ribbed].Anthers 3 and opposite the inner perianth lobes [or in Haplothismia and most Thismieae 6], sessile or subsessile in the perianth throat [or with short recurved filaments], 4-loculate, latrorse [or introrse], connective broad, often appendaged at top and/or base; pollen grains single or in tetrads [or dyads], 1 -or 2-porate [4-porate or 1 -colpate].Gynoecium 3-carpellate, syncarpous; style single, filiform [or short-cylindrical or conical in Thismieae], tipped with 3 short branches, each with a single stigma [or with 3 sessile or connate stigmas]; ovary inferior, 3-locular with axile placentae or 1-locular with 3 parietal placentae [in some genera with a large, globose gland inside the ovary on each side of the top of each placenta!];ovules numerous, JOURNAL OF THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM [vol.64 minute, anatropous, 2-integumented, tenuinucellar; female gametophyte of the Polygonum or the Allium type.Perianth persistent on the fruit [or the upper part bearing the stamens deciduous, only the lower part persistent, or in Thismieae the entire perianth circumscissile, leaving only a basal thickened ring].Fruit capsular [sometimes fleshy in Thismieae], dehiscing irregularly or splitting transversely [or at the top] or sometimes by valves.Seeds numerous, small; embryo minute, undifferentiated, sometimes composed of only a few (3-6) cells; endosperm present, usually consisting of relatively few, large cells.(Including Thismiaceae J. G. Agardh, nom.cons.; excluding Corsiaceae Beccari, nom.cons.)Type genus: Burmannia L.A small family of 17 or 18 genera and about 135 species of perennial or annual mycotrophic herbs, varying from leafy-stemmed, green autotrophs to scale-leaved, achlorophyllous "saprophytes."The family occurs primarily in the tropics and subtropics of North and South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia, but with extensions northward to Virginia and Illinois in the United States and to southern Japan, and southward to Brazil and Argentina; Angola, South Africa, and Madagascar; and southeastern Australia, Tasmania, and northern New Zealand.The distribution of Burmannia L. q.v.) is nearly that of the family; Gymnosiphon Blume occurs in Central and South America, the West Indies, tropical Africa, Madagascar, Malaysia, Indonesia, and New Guinea; and Thismia occurs in the Americas, tropical Asia, and Australia-New Zealand.Twelve genera are indigenous in South America, and six of these extend into North America, with Burmannia L. and Apteria Nutt., of tribe Burmannieae, and Thismia, of tribe Thismieae, reaching the United States.Although most genera are confined to the Americas, to Africa, or to Asia-Australia, there are Warm Warm Brazil, and G. Abei Akasawa, known from Shikoku and southern Kyushu, Japan.Thismia Griff, sect.Rodwaya Schlechter includes only two closely related species: T Rodwayi F. Mueller (Bagnisia Hillii Cheeseman), of Australia (eastern Victoria and Tasmania) and New Zealand (North Island), and T. americana N. E. Pfeiffer, known from only one colony discovered on low prairies near Chicago in 1912 and presumably now extinct.A more familiar pattern is seen in Burmannia, in which there are several tropical Americantropical Asian disjunctions.The family is generally regarded as being composed of two or three groups of genera that have been ranked by various authors as tribes, subfamilies, or families (see Jonker, 1938; Lawrence).Bentham & Hooker, Baillon, and Engler, among others, considered the Burmanniaceae to consist of tribes Burmannieae (Euburmannieae), Thismieae, and Corsieae.Thorne recognized these same groups at the rank of subfamily, while Hutchinson treated them as distinct families.Jonker, Takhtajan, Cronquist, and others have maintained Corsiaceae and Burmanniaceae (with tribes Burmannieae and Thismieae) as distinct families.Airy Shaw established a new tribe, Haplothismieae, to accommodate Haplothismia annulata Airy Shaw (of South India) in Burmanniaceae, kept tribes Burmannieae and Thismieae, and maintained Corsiaceae as a separate family.