Commelinales

The Commelinales are an order of monocots, including the spiderwort family, Commelinaceae[?]. Unfortunately the composition of the remainder of the group has been highly variable. Under Cronquist, the following additional families were recognized:

• Rapataceae[?]
• Xyridaceae[?]
• Mayacaceae[?]

However, many more modern authors consider these families to have closer affinities to other groups, moving the Xyridaceae to the Eriocaulales and the others to the Bromeliales. In their place, a series of forms formerly classified in the Liliales have been realized to have closer affinities to the Commelinidae, and so are either grouped in the Commelinales or in a separate, possibly paraphyletic, order Philydrales. These families are as follows:

• Haemodoraceae[?]
• Pontederiaceae[?]
• Philydraceae[?]
• Hanguanaceae[?]

This variability in membership makes characterization of the Commelinales, beyond being the Commelinaceae and its close relatives, very difficult.