Phormium
| New Zealand flax | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Phormium tenax in bloom in Piha, west Auckland, New Zealand | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Monocots |
| Order: | Asparagales |
| Family: | Asphodelaceae |
| Subfamily: | Hemerocallidoideae |
| Genus: |
Phormium J.R. Forst. & G. Forst. |
| Type species | |
|
Phormium tenax |
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| Species | |
Phormium is a genus of two plant species in the Asphodelaceae family. One species is endemic to New Zealand and the other is native to New Zealand and Norfolk Island. The two species are widely known in New Zealand as 'flax' and elsewhere as New Zealand flax or flax lily but are not related to flax which is native to the region extending from the eastern Mediterranean to India and which was used by humans in 30,000 B.C.
Phormium is an herbaceous perennial monocot. Monocot classification has undergone significant revision in the past decade, and recent classification systems (including the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group) have found Phormium to be closely related to daylilies (Hemerocallis), placing it in family Asphodelaceae, subfamily Hemerocallidoideae. Phormium formerly belonged to the family Agavaceae and many classification systems still place it there. It includes two species, Phormium colensoi and Phormium tenax. It also includes many cultivars.
The genus was originally established by the German naturalists Johann Reinhold Forster and his son Georg Forster in 1775 from specimens of Phormium tenax collected by both Forsters and the Swedish naturalist Anders Erikson Sparrman. All of them were part of the second expedition of Captain James Cook aboard the Resolution (1772–1775). The type specimens were taken from Queen Charlotte Sound, with additional specimens from both Norfolk Island and North Island, New Zealand. The name Phormium comes from Ancient Greek for "basket", while tenax was Latin for "strong".
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Wikipedia