Lennoaceae

Taxobox | name = Lennoaceae
regnum = Plantae
divisio = Magnoliophyta
classis = Magnoliopsida
ordo = "unassigned"
familia = Lennoaceae
familia_authority = Solms-Laubach
subdivision_ranks = Genera
subdivision = "Ammobroma"
"Lennoa"
"Pholisma"

Lennoaceae is a family of parasitic flowering plants of south-western North America and north-western South America.

The relationships of this family with other plants remain uncertain, and the family has been placed in different orders by different authors, including Lamiales (in the Cronquist system) and Solanales (Dahlgren system). Molecular phylogenetic publications have grouped the Lennoaceae within the clade "Euasterids I", and most recently, it was subsumed into the family Boraginaceae in the APG II system [cite web |url=http://www.f-lohmueller.de/botany/fam/l/Lennoaceae.htm |title=Lennoaceae |work=The Botanical System of the Plants |author=Friedrich A. Lohmüller |year=2005] .

The family has a disjunct distribution, occurring in Colombia as well as a separate area in south-western North America, covering parts of California, Arizona and Mexico [cite web |url=http://www.parasiticplants.siu.edu/Lennoaceae/index.html |title=Lennoaceae |work=The Parasitic Plant Connection |author=Dan Nickrent |publisher=Southern Illinois University at Carbondale |date=2006-02-25] .

The family comprises up to three genera, "Ammobroma", "Lennoa" and "Pholisma", which between them hold around five species, including the desert christmas tree, "Pholisma arenarium" and sandfood, "Pholisma sonorae" [cite web |url=http://plants.usda.gov/index.html |title="Pholisma" |work=PLANTS Database |publisher=United States Department of Agriculture |accessdate=2007-06-25] .

Members of this family are succulent, herbaceous plants with no chlorophyll cite web |author=L. Watson & M. J. Dallwitz |year=1992 onwards |work=The families of flowering plants: descriptions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval |title=Lennoaceae Solms-Laubach |date=2007-06-01 |url=http://delta-intkey.com/angio/www/lennoace.htm] . The leaves are reduced to short scales, and the plants are entirely parasitic on the roots of their hosts, which are typically "Clematis", "Euphorbia", and various woody Compositae .

References