Commelinaceae

Commelinaceae is a family of flowering plants. In less formal contexts, the group is referred to as the dayflower family or spiderwort family. It is one of five families in the order Commelinales and by far the largest of these with about 731 known species in 41 genera. Well known genera include Commelina (dayflowers) and Tradescantia (spiderworts). The family is diverse in both the Old World tropics and the New World tropics, with some genera present in both. The variation in morphology, especially that of the flower and inflorescence, is considered to be exceptionally high amongst the angiosperms.

Commelinaceae

Muhammad Mahdi Karim · GFDL 1.2 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
dayflowerPBDB
Sits inside
CommelinalesPBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 9 million years on record.

The record covers at least 11.63 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 13.82 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 2 of 4 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 4 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 1 of 4 occurrencesPleistocene14–13 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences5.7–5.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences5.3–4.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.8–4.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.3–3.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.8–3.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.3–2.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.9–2.4 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.4–1.9 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.9–1.4 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.4–955 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences955 ka–477 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences477 ka–0 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences11.63 Mya2.58 Mya14.3 Mya0 Mya

4 occurrences of Commelinaceae on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

4 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

2 formations

Ngorora — 0.88°N, 35.80°EOlduvai — 2.99°S, 35.35°E

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The named rock units Commelinaceae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Commelinaceae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Commelinaceae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

105 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Commelinaceae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

3 references

Each of the 4 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Commelinaceae

Credit
Muhammad Mahdi Karim
Licence
GFDL 1.2
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Commelinaceae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itCommelinales through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. de Mirbel 1804