Haemodoraceae

Haemodoraceae is a family of flowering plants. It is sometimes known as the "Bloodwort family". Primarily a Southern Hemisphere family, they are found in South Africa, Australia and New Guinea, and in the Americas (from SE U.S.A. to tropical South America).

Perhaps the best known are the widely cultivated and unusual Kangaroo Paws from Australia, of the two closely related genera Anigozanthos and Macropidia.

The APG II system, of 2003 (unchanged from the APG system, of 1998), also recognizes this family and places it in the order Commelinales, in the clade commelinids, in the monocots. The family then includes about a dozen genera, totalling several dozen species, of perennial herbaceous plants.

The leathery leaves are rather large and entire or ensiform, with entire margins. The leaves are enclosed by a sheath with free margins and alternate, distichous (= in two vertical ranks).

The plants are hermaphroditic. Pollinators are primarily insects, but also birds or sometimes a small mammal. The wooly-haired flowers grow at the end of a leafles stalk, in cymes (with lateral branches), panicles or racemes.

Potentially confused plants

The term bloodwort can also apply to Sanguinaria canadensis (more often called bloodroot) or Achillea millefolium (more often called yarrow or common yarrow).

Genera

Anigozanthos - Kangaroo Paws
Barberetta
Blancoa
Conostylis
Dilatris
Haemodorum - Bloodroots
Lachnanthes
Macropidia - Black Kangaroo Paw
Phlebocarya
Pyrrhorhiza
Schiekia
Tribonanthes
Xiphidium
Wachendorfia

Translation

The word "Haemodoraceae" occurs as such in the following languages: English, German, Spanish, French, Indonesian, Dutch, Norwegian (Bokmål), Portuguese, Serbian.

Translation(s) in other languages: Japanese: ハエモドルム科, Russian: Гемодоровые, Swedish: Kängurutassväxter, Vietnamese: Họ Huyết bì thảo, Chinese: 血皮草科.