Tricarpelema
| Tricarpelema | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Monocots |
| (unranked): | Commelinids |
| Order: | Commelinales |
| Family: | Commelinaceae |
| Subfamily: | Commelinoideae |
| Tribe: | Commelineae |
| Genus: |
Tricarpelema J.K.Morton |
| Type species | |
|
T. giganteum (Hassk.) H.Hara |
|
Tricarpelema is a genus of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the dayflower family consisting of 8 species. The genus is divided into two subgenera, subgenus Tricarpelema, which includes 7 known species found in tropical Asia, and subgenus Keatingia with one species in western Africa. The Asian species are typically found in the forest understory while the single African species has evolved to drier, sunnier conditions and is usually associated with inselbergs.
The genus Tricarpelema was created in 1966 by Kevin Cousins when he found that a Himalayan species then known as Aneilema thomsonii could not be satisfactorily classified within Aneilema nor the related genus Dictyospermum. He placed this species in the new genus as Tricarpelema giganteum. D.Y. Hong added two species to the new genus, namely T. chinense and T. xizangenese, in 1974 and 1981 respectively. Meanwhile, in a 1975 Ph.D. thesis, Robert Faden treated Tricarpelema as a subgenus of the closely related genus Dictyospermum, while in 1980 R.S. Rao added another Indian species to the genus, namely T. glanduliferum. By 1991 Faden had recognised the genus as distinct and added yet another species to it, this time T. philippense. He and J. Cowley published a sixth species in 1996, T. pumilum, which is endemic to Borneo. Two years later Faden recognised a seventh undescribed species from Vietnam and also commented on an African plant that could be an eighth species. In 2007 both of these were described with the Vietnamese species being named T. brevipedicellatum and the African species T. africanum. As the African species differs from the Asian taxa in a number of important morphological features as well as in habitat, Faden assigned it to a new subgenus Keatingia.
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