Useful information about the plant family

Family: Marantaceae R. Br. 1814

Description-internal

perennial herbs or liana, sometimes with color-patterned leaves flowers on seperate shoots, two flowers each often with colored fruits

Distribution

equatorial tropics, especially in America

Floral characters

bisexual, 3 sepals, 3 petals, 1 fertile stamen with one lateral theca 3 carpels, 2 of them often sterile often bracteate

Leaf characters

distichuous - spiro-distichouos, often with coloured patterns petiole often winged, pulvinus at lamina

Stipules

absent

Fruit characters

three valved capsule or berry, often with colored arrilum (distribution by birds or ants; by water in Thalia)

Glands

absent

Hairs

absent

Latex

absent

Uses

Maranta arundinacea - grown for food (rhizomes) Calathea - species for building, baskets and for food

Chemical characters

rhizome with amylum

Distribution maps

(online von http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/research/APweb/ . Dort zitiert wie unter jedem Diagramm vermerkt):

Marantaceae
map: from Heywood 1978; Andrew Ford, pers. comm.; Fl. N. Am. 4: 2003