The Zingiberales are flowering plants forming one of four orders in the commelinids clade of monocots, together with its sister order, Commelinales. The order includes 68 genera and 2,600 species. Zingiberales are a unique though morphologically diverse order that has been widely recognised as such over a long period of time. They are usually large herbaceous plants with rhizomatous root systems and lacking an aerial stem except when flowering. Flowers are usually large and showy, and the stamens are often modified (staminodes) to also form colourful petal-like structures that attract pollinators.
Zingiberaceae or the ginger family is a family of flowering plants made up of about 50 genera with a total of about 1600 known species of aromatic perennial herbs with creeping horizontal or tuberous rhizomes distributed throughout tropical Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Many of the family's species are important ornamental, spice, or medicinal plants. Ornamental genera include the shell gingers (Alpinia), Siam or summer tulip, Globba, ginger lily (Hedychium), Kaempferia, torch-ginger Etlingera elatior, Renealmia, and ginger (Zingiber). Spices include ginger (Zingiber), galangal or Thai ginger, melegueta pepper, myoga, korarima, turmeric (Curcuma), and cardamom.
Canna or canna lily is the only genus of flowering plants in the family Cannaceae, consisting of 10 species. All of the genus's species are native to the American tropics and naturalized in Europe, India and Africa in the 1860s. Although they grow native to the tropics, most cultivars have been developed in temperate climates and are easy to grow in most countries of the world, as long as they receive at least 6–8 hours average sunlight during the summer, and are moved to a warm location for the winter. See the Canna cultivar gallery for photographs of Canna cultivars.
The Strelitziaceae comprise a family of monocotyledonous flowering plants, very similar in appearance and growth habit to members of the related families Heliconiaceae and Musaceae. The three genera with seven species of Strelitziaceae have been included in Musaceae in some classifications, but are generally recognized as a separate family in more recent treatments such as the APG II system (2003). The APG II system assigns the Strelitziaceae to the order Zingiberales in the commelinid clade.
The Marantaceae are a family, the arrowroot family, of flowering plants consisting of 31 genera and around 530 species, defining it as one of the most species-rich families in its order. Species of this family are found in lowland tropical forests of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The majority (80%) of the species are found in the American tropics, followed by Asian (11%) and African (9%) tropics. They are commonly called the prayer-plant family and are also known for their unique secondary pollination presentation.
The green hermit is a large hummingbird that is a resident breeder from southern Central America south to northern South America
The rufous-breasted hermit or hairy hermit is a hummingbird that breeds from Panama south to Bolivia, and on Trinidad, Tobago and Grenada. It is a widespread and generally common species, though local populations may change in numbers and disappear altogether in marginal habitat.
Costaceae, known as the Costus family or spiral gingers, is a family of pantropical monocots. It belongs to the order Zingiberales, which contains horticulturally and economically important plants such as the banana (Musaceae), bird-of-paradise (Strelitziaceae), and edible ginger (Zingiberaceae). The seven genera in Costaceae together contain about 143 known species. They are native to tropical climates of Asia, Africa, Central America, and South America. Several species are frequently found in cultivation.
Heliconia chartacea is a species of Heliconia native to tropical South America.
Ornithophily or bird pollination is the pollination of flowering plants by birds. This sometimes coevolutionary association is derived from insect pollination (entomophily) and is particularly well developed in some parts of the world, especially in the tropics, Southern Africa, and on some island chains. The association involves several distinctive plant adaptations forming a "pollination syndrome". The plants typically have colourful, often red, flowers with long tubular structures holding ample nectar and orientations of the stamen and stigma that ensure contact with the pollinator. Birds involved in ornithophily tend to be specialist nectarivores with brushy tongues and long bills, that are either capable of hovering flight or light enough to perch on the flower structures.
Pollination syndromes are suites of flower traits that have evolved in response to natural selection imposed by different pollen vectors, which can be abiotic or biotic, such as birds, bees, flies, and so forth through a process called pollinator-mediated selection. These traits include flower shape, size, colour, odour, reward type and amount, nectar composition, timing of flowering, etc. For example, tubular red flowers with copious nectar often attract birds; foul smelling flowers attract carrion flies or beetles, etc.
Phytotelma is a small water-filled cavity in a terrestrial plant. The water accumulated within these plants may serve as the habitat for associated fauna and flora.
Heliconia excelsa is a species of plant in the family Heliconiaceae. It is endemic to Ecuador. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest.
In ethology and behavioral ecology, trap-lining or traplining is a feeding strategy in which an individual visits food sources on a regular, repeatable sequence, much as trappers check their lines of traps. Traplining is usually seen in species foraging for floral resources. This involves a specified route in which the individual traverses in the same order repeatedly to check specific plants for flowers that hold nectar, even over long distances. Trap-lining has been described in several taxa, including bees, butterflies, tamarins, bats, rats, and hummingbirds and tropical fruit-eating mammals such as opossums, capuchins and kinkajous. Traplining is used to term the method in which bumblebees and hummingbirds go about collecting nectar, and consequently, pollinating each plant they visit. The term "traplining" was originally coined by Daniel Janzen, although the concept was discussed by Charles Darwin and Nikolaas Tinbergen.
Passiflora mixta, from the family Passifloraceae is also known as curuba, curuba de indio, curuba de monte, curubita, curuba (Colombia), parcha (Venezuela), and taxo (Ecuador). Originally, it derived from the monophyletic Passiflora subgenus Tacsonia. Passiflora mixta is endemic to the Americas. A perennial vine, the Passiflora mixta is pink to orange-red in color.
In evolutionary biology, mimicry in plants is where a plant organism evolves to resemble another organism physically or chemically, increasing the mimic's Darwinian fitness. Mimicry in plants has been studied far less than mimicry in animals, with fewer documented cases and peer-reviewed studies. However, it may provide protection against herbivory, or may deceptively encourage mutualists, like pollinators, to provide a service without offering a reward in return.
Costus curvibracteatus is a tropical rhizomatous perennial native to Costa Rica and Panama. A member of the spiral ginger family of plants, its common name is orange tulip ginger. It is also sometimes referred to as spiral ginger; however, this common name is better associated with Costus barbatus, a more widely cultivated and very similar species. Despite the name and its relation to the ginger family (Zingiberaceae), the rhizomes of the orange tulip ginger are not edible.
The "banana-families" or banana group is a basal paraphyletic assemblage in the order Zingiberales (Monocotyledoneae) that comprises Musaceae, Lowiaceae, Strelitziaceae, and Heliconiaceae. These taxa differentiate from the "ginger-families" derived clade by their plesiomorphic state of five or six fertile stamens, and generally have large banana-like leaves that are easily torn between secondary veins.
The ginger-families or ginger group or Core Zingiberales is a terminal clade in the order Zingiberales (Monocotyledoneae) that comprises Zingiberaceae, Costaceae, Marantaceae and Cannaceae. Their shared synapomorphy of a single fertile anther and four or five highly modified staminodia differentiate them from the basal paraphyletic assemblage of the "banana-families".
Walter John Emil Kress is an American botanist and the vice-president for science at the National Museum of Natural History. He currently holds the appointment (2010) as the Director of the Consortium for Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet at the Smithsonian and is the former Executive Director of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation.
